8 Reales Felipe IV 1629: Silver Cob Value & How to Sell

If you inherited a heavy, crudely struck silver coin marked from Spanish colonial Mexico, here is the honest answer: a 1629 8 reales struck under Felipe IV is worth anywhere from its silver melt value (roughly the price of 0.77 troy ounces of silver) to several thousand US dollars, depending almost entirely on condition and authenticity. Age alone does not make it valuable. A worn, common example is a modest silver piece. A well-preserved, certified one is a serious collector coin.

This was one of the original "pieces of eight," the silver dollar of the colonial world, minted at the Casa de Moneda de México (the Mexico City mint) during the reign of Felipe IV of Spain. In 2026, demand for early hand-struck Mexican colonial silver remains strong among world-coin collectors in the US and Europe, which is why grade and provenance matter more than the date on the coin.

What you actually have

This is an 8 reales from 1629, part of the colonial 8 reales series. The key specs, which double as your first authenticity check:

• Metal: Silver, .900 fine (90% silver)
• Weight: 26.58 grams
• Diameter: 40 mm
• Edge: plain (unlettered)
• Mint: Mexico City (ceca México)
• Assayer: D
• Era: Spanish colonial (Virreinato)

These early coins were struck by hand, so genuine examples are often irregular in shape, off-center, and unevenly struck. That is normal for the type. A perfectly round, perfectly centered "1629" coin should raise your suspicion, not your hopes.

What it's worth

There is no single price. Value tracks four things: silver content (the floor), grade, eye appeal, and whether it is certified. Here is a realistic breakdown for US buyers.

Condition	What it looks like	Realistic value (USD)
Heavily worn / damaged	Flat design, corrosion, holed	Melt value (roughly 15 to 25 USD)
Circulated, identifiable	Date and design readable	100 to 500 USD
High grade, problem-free	Sharp strike, good surfaces	800 to 3,000+ USD
Certified, choice example	NGC/PCGS graded, strong eye appeal	Several thousand USD

The melt floor moves with the silver spot price. At 26.58 grams of .900 silver, the coin contains about 0.77 troy ounces of pure silver, so the minimum value is roughly that many ounces times the current spot price. It never trades below that unless it is damaged or fake.

Grade is the multiplier. A coin certified by NGC or PCGS (the two recognized US grading services) in a high grade can sell for many times what the same coin fetches raw and worn. If you think yours is exceptional, certification is worth the fee.

The myth: "it's from the 1600s, so it's worth a fortune"

This is the belief that costs people money, in both directions. Being nearly 400 years old does not make a coin rare. Colonial 8 reales were minted in enormous quantities as international trade currency, and millions circulated across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Plenty survive.

What is scarce is a well-preserved, genuine, correctly attributed example. A beat-up cob is a common silver coin. A sharp one with clean surfaces is where the real money is. Do not assume yours is a five-figure rarity because it is old, and do not sell it for scrap because you assume it is worthless. Get it looked at first.

How to tell if yours is genuine

Counterfeits of colonial silver are common, so run these checks before you celebrate or sell.

1. Weigh it. A genuine coin should be close to 26.58 grams. A digital scale that reads to 0.01 g costs a few dollars. Significantly light or heavy is a red flag.
2. Measure it. Around 40 mm in diameter. Cast fakes are often slightly off.
3. Check the metal. Real .900 silver rings with a clear, sustained high tone when balanced on a fingertip and tapped gently. A dull, short thud suggests a base-metal fake.
4. Look at the strike. Genuine hand-struck coins show honest irregularity, not the soft, mushy detail of a cast copy or the too-perfect uniformity of a modern replica.
5. When in doubt, certify. For any coin you believe could be worth more than a few hundred dollars, NGC or PCGS grading is the definitive answer. It confirms authenticity, assigns a grade, and makes the coin far easier to sell.

Where to sell it

Because this is a precious-metal coin, sell only to buyers who will show you the coin's weight and let you verify before money changes hands.

• Certified first for valuable pieces. If it grades well, a certified coin sells for more and faster through major auction houses like Heritage Auctions or Stack's Bowers, both of which handle Mexican colonial silver regularly.
• Verified dealers. A vetted numismatic shop from the Pesoteca directory will appraise it on the spot without middleman markups.
• Collector marketplace. The Pesoteca buy-and-sell forum connects you with collectors who know exactly what this coin is.
• Avoid dumping it on a general marketplace to the first offer. That is where undervaluation and counterfeits both thrive.

Before you list it anywhere, photograph the obverse, reverse, and edge in good light, weigh it, and compare against the value table above so you know what a fair offer looks like.

Got a 1629 8 reales in hand and not sure which grade bracket it falls into? Post clear photos on the Pesoteca forum and let collectors who handle these coins weigh in before you sell.

This piece belongs to the reign of Philip IV of Spain (1621-1665). King during the Thirty Years' War and the separation of Portugal. His favorite was the Count-Duke of Olivares.

The government of New Spain in 1629 was in the hands of Rodrigo Pacheco, Marquis of Cerralvo, the year of the Great Flood of Mexico City.

The numismatic type of the piece is a cob, also called a hammer-cut coin. The flans were trimmed with shears from a silver bar and struck between hand-held dies, so no cob has an edge or a perfectly circular shape. It circulated as the reference trade coin throughout the Atlantic for more than two centuries.

The Mexico City mint (crowned Mo mark) operated from 1535 as the first mint in the Americas. During the 17th century it struck cobs almost without interruption, being the main point of issue of struck silver in the Spanish empire. The assayer's initials declared on the piece are D, an official of the Royal Treasury charged with certifying the silver fineness (0.930 and later 0.903) according to the viceregal standard.

The colonial catalogs trace this piece within the families of the Mexico City piece of eight, with prices that respond to rarity by year and assayer's signature.

The year of the Great Flood of Mexico Tenochtitlan, which left the New Spanish capital under water for five years.