^Lot 71 Gold "finger" bar from the Atocha, ingot #3126, 463 grams, marked with three partial tax stamps

Gold "finger" bar ingot #3126, 463 grams, marked with three partial tax stamps, tested at 21.25K fine gold, ex-Atocha (1622), with hand-signed certificate from 1979. 6-1/4" x 1" x 1/2". A complete ingot, like a fine cigar halved lengthwise as cast in a neat trough, the flat top with a deep, squarish cavity (extending laterally inside the ingot) where an air bubble was trapped as the metal cooled, also with three deep stamps showing only the dotted outer border of a Royal seal used to indicate that the quinto (20% tax) had been paid, one end naturally round but the other crudely chiseled where it was tested in its time for fineness, albeit without any markings for fineness or assayer/foundry or serial number, natural bright yellow in color and very tidy overall, significant as an early, pre-"Mother Lode" find. From the Atocha (1622), with original Fisher photo-certificate 3126 from 1979, hand-signed by Eugene Lyon, Claudia Singer, Don Kincaid, Mel and Dolores (Deo) Fisher, pedigreed to the J.P. Silberman Estate.