Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita, the 2022 Anniversary Edition, provides detailed information about the silver reales “treasure” coins recovered from Florida’s 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. The 2022 edition significantly expands on the 2010 edition, with added back-stories on the founding of the minting houses, more historic images, and the most current assayer identity and timeline information available to date for the Potosi, Lima, and Mexico City mints, from their openings up until 1622, including extensive source citations.
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Review:
As a foremost authority on Spanish Colonial coinage from the lost 1622 Tierra Firme fleet, Carol Tedesco has provided an up-dated history of the mints and assayers represented on over 200,000 silver coins excavated from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita shipwreck sites. Her meticulous study stretching over the last three decades has been augmented by several prominent Latin American archival historian/numismatists who, in the spirit of advancing the body of knowledge, have contributed significant research data to fill in known gaps in the New World coinage. This numismatic "tour de force" is a major archaeological contribution in the documentation of the 1622 artifact assemblage, which tells a unique research story of underwater discovery to be enjoyed by history buffs, academic scholars, and numismatists around the world...
R. Duncan Mathewson III PhD
Marine Archaeologist
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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.
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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.
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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 source of the lore behind assayer T - Juan Ximénez de Tapia - being labeled as "the dyslexic mint worker."
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Review:
Ms Tedesco has taken an often confusing subject and not only made it understandable but enjoyable. Her knowledge of the coins from these shipwrecks is second to none and includes all of the latest research. These books are indispensable for the serious collector, the casual hobbyist or just those interested in the coins from these important wrecks. Great works from the authority on these coins.
--James Sinclair, MA, Maritime Historic Archaeologist
Review:
Dear Carol: ...concerning your two books (Treasure Coins of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita, the 2022 Anniversary Edition, and Untangling the Record—A Contemporary Review of Potosi and Lima Mint Coins and Assayer History from the Mint Openings up to 1622), I read them both and found them to be a valuable resource, as your research is both important and accurate.
--Christopher R. McDowell, editor, Journal of Early American Numismatics (JEAN), a publication of the American Numismatic Society
Chapter 6. Tedesco, C., The Deep-Sea Tortugas Shipwreck, Florida: the Silver Coins.
In 1990 Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology of Tampa, Florida, commenced the world's first robotic archaeological excavation of a deep-sea shipwreck south of the Tortugas Islands in the Straits of Florida. At a depth of 405 meters, 16,903 artifacts were recovered using a Remotely-Operated Vehicle. The wreck is interpreted as the Buen Jesus y Nuestra Senora del Rosario, a small Portuguese-built and Spanish-operated merchant vessel from the 1622 Tierra Firme fleet returning to Seville from Venezuela's Pearl Coast when lost in a hurricane.
Oceans Odyssey 3 introduces the shipwreck and its artifact collection ranging from gold bars to silver coins, pearls, ceramics, beads, glass wares, astrolabes, tortoiseshell, animal bones and seeds. The Tortugas shipwreck reflects the daily life of trade with the Americas at the end of the Golden Age of Spain and presents the capabilities of deep-sea robotics as tools for precision archaeological excavation.
In After Life - Images from the Key West Cemetery , with photographs by Carol Tedesco and Roberta DePiero and narrative by Jane Newhagen, we have fresh proof that death can be every bit as splendid as life. These images are evidence that the business and the architecture of mortality in Key West's last resting place, replete with tropical sparkle and haunting idiosyncrasies, make the afterlife as immortal, as uplifting, and as purposeful as life at its prime."
Mark Howell, author, reporter, editor
In 2020, more than 25 Key West area photographers contributed to “Isolated Island – The Key West COVID-19 Spring of 2020,” a 352 page photo-book produced by Roberta DePiero, Carol Tedesco, and Eric Grahl that documented the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a quarantine checkpoint near the entrance to the Florida Keys was in effect.
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In the book’s foreword, arts advocate Rosi Ware wrote, “Many of us exalted in the newfound peace and clear blue waters, the cacophony of bird song and masses of butterflies, whilst others worried about putting food on the table and paying the rent.” The sold-out limited edition run of 1000 copies raised $60,000.00 for Sister Season Fund, lending much needed support to their mission to prevent homelessness and provide assistance for Key West tourist industry workers at that crucial time.
Sold Out Limited Edition