ROBERT I. NESMITH'S TREASURE HUNTER BROTHERHOOD

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V23 2020 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 47, November 22, 2020, Article 23

Tom Kays is a regular member of my Northern Virginia numismatic social group Nummis Nova. We've been holding monthly Zoom sessions in lieu of our normal restaurant get-togethers. Tom kindly provided this report on November's event and one of the neat items he exhibited. Thanks! -Editor

The Nummis Nova Supper Club met by Zoom last Tuesday. As vacuous as the appetizers were, so too, the main course was entirely too airy and insubstantial for my palate, and for dessert... don't get me started. I would not recommend Zoom as a restaurant substitute if one is hungry. Be that as it may, it was good to see a few of the old crowd in the comfort of their homes and libraries. We had time to walk around our desks and peer into the stacks of our numismatic libraries. Different hosts plucked interesting books from their customary nooks and shared them as one would a bedtime story. Here is what I picked.

I pulled ANS Numismatic Notes and Monographs #131, The Coinage of the First Mint of the Americas at Mexico City 1536 – 1572 by Robert I. Nesmith, published in 1955 and shared a most curious inscription from the author on the flyleaf.

NNM#131 Nesmith skull and crossbones seal

In what was once blood red sealing wax, Robert finished his dedication with a flame and drops of crimson on the page, in which he pressed what I envision to be a gold signet ring, leaving a most impressive flourish of skull and crossbones. Dedicated

To Hans Cochran, one of the Brotherhood with the gratitude and best wishes of the author – Robert I. Nesmith - at the Foul Anchor - Rye, February 18, 1963.

Who was Robert I. Nesmith you ask? In Kiplinger's Personal Finance Newsletter "Changing Times" of May 1956, this advertisement appears: "Hints to Treasure Hunters: "If you want to pay for expert advice on a given problem, write to Robert I. Nesmith, Foul Anchor Archives, Rye N.Y. he is a recognized authority on old coins, and he has authentic records on the never-ending search for buried treasure."

Another tip for treasure hunters reads: "Don't go plunging off after sunken or buried treasure without reading available literature or consulting an expert in the field. A couple of months ago a man got steamed up about finding gold, silver and crown jewels of Maximillian, which were said to have been in the safe of the Ward liner Merida when she sank off the Virginia Capes on May 12, 1911. Fortunately, the prospective treasure hunter checked with Robert I. Nesmith of Rye, N.Y., who quickly proved that several expeditions had searched for the Merida and that one had finally found her at a considerable expense and pulled up the safe. Inside were three disks: a waiter's badge, numbered 13, a Mexican copper coin and a counterfeit U.S. 50-cent piece. Research showed that the ship had been rammed at midnight and not abandoned till five hours later. The purser had had plenty of time to empty the safe."

In the ANS Monograph #131, Robert Nesmith writes that his study of the earliest coinage of the Americas was propelled by the scanty information and lack of knowledge about the circumstances of emission of coins from the Mexico City Mint. A series of articles written by Wayte Raymond in The Coin Collector's Journal of 1943-44 proved this point. In introduction Robert Nesmith explains:

After conquering Mexico, Hernan Cortes sailed back to Spain in 1540, complaining about Viceroy Mendoza to the crown, which prompted a thorough government investigation. Francisco Sandoval probed into the doings at the mint in Mexico from 1544 – 1547. He generated mounds of official records detailing much that coin collectors would never otherwise know about smelting, coining, weighing, and bookkeeping. Eventually Mendoza was cleared of wrongdoing and punishments meted out to underlings for various minor infractions since every Spanish inquisition must find someone at fault to justify the travel expenses of the inquisitors.

Robert Nesmith knew of the Archives of the Indies where official documents of the Spanish Empire including original handwritten decrees, regulations, and appointments for New Spain from the 1500s still resided, untranslated in archaic Spanish, at the Archives in Seville. The first English translation of the Royal Decrees establishing the Mexico City Mint on May 11, 1535 were published in his ANS Monograph #131. Robert studied many early Mexican coins in fine numismatic collections including at the American Numismatic Society, and the Banco de Mexico, S.A. As a capstone to his monograph, a large hoard of over one thousand coins from Carlos and Johanna to Philip II was unearthed in Mexico in the summer of 1952 which added to the varieties known.

By the way... a new private group on Facebook formed this past week for those who collect pirate coins. Dedicated to showing off, sharing, buying, selling, trading, and auctioning off "pirate coins" they define pirate coins as those of Spain and Portugal – and their colonies in Central and South America from 1474 till 1830. Also coins of the West Indies, Danish West Indies and Dutch West Indies from 1740 to 1913 along with shipwreck coins and artifacts. What better examples than these first coins of Mexico, in circulation at the rise of the Age of Piracy and throughout, as likely coins to be inducted into a set of cobs and hammered coins, minted back when swashbuckling was in vogue.

I'd never seen a wax seal used in a book like this. Did Nesmith sign other copies this way? Has any other author done such a thing? Great idea, and very cool. -Editor