CAROL TEDESCO
Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha & the Santa Margarita Signed by Author! Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita, Second Edition, provides detailed information about the silver reales “treasure” coins recovered from the 1622 fleet shipwrecks, including what the coins look like when first discovered, how they are cleaned, conserved, and graded, what they were worth in the 17th century, the meaning of the various markings, how to identify a coin’s mint of origin, and the names and periods of office of the assayers who were responsible for guaranteeing coins of legal weight and purity and whose initials were mandated to be stamped on them. This Second Edition significantly expands on the 2010 edition, with added back-stories on the founding of the minting houses, more historic images, and updated, comprehensive assayer information, including source citations. All the mint and assayer information detailed in Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha & the Santa Margarita also applies to São José 1622 shipwreck coins and all other hand-struck Spanish Colonial coins of this period.
Untangling the Record A Contemporary Review of Potosi and Lima Mint Coins and Assayer History from the Mint Openings Up to 1622 Signed by Author!"Untangling the Record—A Contemporary Review of Potosi and Lima Mint Coins and Assayer History from the Mint Openings up to 1622" is a second edition printing of a paper researched and written by Carol Tedesco and presented at Cartagena MMXXI —The 3rd International Convention of Historians and Numismatists, held in December of 2021 in Cartagena, Colombia. Description: Some years previous to the discovery of the Atocha and Santa Margarita shipwrecks, a prominent expert in the field of Spanish Colonial numismatics incorrectly attributed the coins of early Potosi assayers R, M, L, and B to the Lima mint (and also C to La Plata), errors that were widely perpetuated for years by others citing his work. With the support of several of Latin America’s most prominent archival historian/numismatists, Carol Tedesco has meticulously disentangled the evidence, deconstructed the errors, and updated the record, providing the most current assayer identity and timeline information available today, complete with extensive source citations. "Untangling the Record" also explains the source of previous identity misattributions concerning a 1618 Potosi mint assayer using the monogram PAL, as well as the origin of the lore behind assayer T - Juan Ximénez de Tapia - being labeled as "the dyslexic mint worker." Review The fruits of the 3rd International Convention (of historians and numismatists) are beginning to germinate with important research and publications such as the book “A Contemporary Review of Potosi and Lima Mint Coins and Assayer History from the Mint Openings up to 1622”, written by our researcher friend Carol Tedesco, who through a wonderful and meticulous work shares with us important numismatic events of the Potosi and Lima coins minted up to 1622. Ing. Andrés Cortázar M PRESIDENTE DEL COMITÉ CARTAGENA 2021
Carol Tedesco Bio Since the 1990s, Carol Tedesco has worked in various capacities with shipwreck projects in the Caribbean, North, South and Central America, the Pacific and Africa, providing services for some of the most prominent underwater exploration companies in the world. She is a founding member of the International Conventions of Historians and Numismatists and is considered a foremost authority on 1622 fleet silver coins. Carol’s publications include: Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita (2010 and 2022), the monographs, The Deep-Sea Dry Tortugas Shipwreck, Florida, 1622: the Silver Coins (2013), and Untangling the Record: A contemporary review of Potosi and Lima mint coins and assayer history from the mint openings up to 1622 (2022); and multiple magazine articles including, Exploring the Journey of Dutch Lead Seals on a Spanish Colonial Shipwreck in the Florida Straits (Popular Archaeology, 2011); Illuminated Treasure (X-Ray Mag, 2011) and Stones of Green and Other Treasures (X-Ray Mag, 2010), an examination of pre-Columbian greenstone artifacts recovered from 1622 fleet shipwrecks.