The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 5, February 1, 2004, Article 9

?THE GREAT DEBATE? CONTINUED

  [Much was written in The E-Sylum and elsewhere
  about the "Great Debate" between Ted Buttrey and
  Mike Hodder which took place at the 1999 convention
  of the American Numismatic Association near Chicago,
  IL.  The subject of the debate was the status of several
  western and Mexican gold assay bars.  See The E-Sylum
  v2n33-36 (August 16, 1999 - September 5, 1999) and
  later issues.  -Editor]

  John M. Kleeberg writes: "Followers of "the Great Debate"
  will be aware that it has several aspects besides Western
  Gold Bars: notably, the authenticity of Mexican Gold Bars
  that emerged onto the market in the 1950s.  Professor
  Buttrey's position on the Western Gold Bars was confirmed
  in the Numismatist in August 2003, when Holabird, Evans
  and Fitch condemned the Lilly-Smithsonian Justh & Hunter
  bar and questioned the authenticity of the Lilly-Smithsonian
  Parsons bar.

   I have just acquired (although the introduction is signed
  August 2003) a new book that throws more light on the
  Mexican bars: Alan K. Craig and Ernest J. Richards,
  Spanish Treasure Bars from New World Shipwrecks
  (West Palm Beach: En Rada Publications, 2003).
  Professor Alan Craig is probably known to readers of
  The E-Sylum as the author of three books about the coin
  collections of the State of Florida from the 1715 Plate Fleet
  and other sources.  Ernest Richards is a longtime researcher
  on shipwrecks.

  The book is a path-breaking study of genuine Spanish
  colonial bars, but perhaps the most interesting material comes
  in chapter 12 on falsifications.  The authors worked
  independently of Professor Buttrey and do not seem to be
  aware of his 1974 and 1996 articles condemning the Mexican
  gold bars: thus, they say that the first appearance of one of the
  Mexican bars was as lot 2093 of the 1975 ANA sale.  This is
  incorrect: the earliest appearance I have been able to trace was
  when Paul Franklin of Massapequa Park, Long Island
  (Franklin died in March 2000) exhibited a bar at the meeting
  of the Brooklyn Coin Club on September 1, 1954
  (Numismatist 1954, p. 1214).  Photographs of the Mexican
  bars were first published in Robert Nesmith's 1958 book,
  Dig for Pirate Treasure, and then appeared in Harry Rieseberg,
  Treasure of the Buccaneer Sea (1962; Rieseberg even claimed
  to be the salvor!) and the 1964 Encyclopedia Britannica,
  before the Smithsonian acquired a whole slew of these bars in
  1967 as part of the Lilly Collection.

  Craig and Richards' conclusions, nonetheless, are even more
  trenchant than those of Professor Buttrey (see pages 148 and
  149): "outrageous 'in your face' gold and silver ingots" truly
  outrageous concoction. These bars are being made with
  dates between 1740 and 1746 integrally cast into the bars
  along with a conspicuous legend in large, modern font letters
  reading: HISP crowned shield ET ID. They are the product
  of corrupt people with criminal intent.  I have been engaged in
  my own research on the Western and Mexican bars, and I, too,
  have concluded that the bars are false.  In light of these recent
  publications, Alan Weinberg's announcement that the
  Smithsonian is taking down its exhibits of these bogus bars is
  welcome news indeed."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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