Auctions: Ahoy, ye collectors: Cache of sunken riches

Freeman's will start the new year this month with a gold rush, not for the coins currently hawked in newspapers and on television as hedges against inflation, but Spanish treasure from 16th- and 17th-century Caribbean shipwrecks.

Aside from the five-figure prices the half-dozen gold and silver bars are expected to bring, they also evoke the Spanish exploitation of the New World's riches and the perils of the high seas.

The sunken treasure will be featured in a sale of English and continental furniture and decorative arts beginning at 10 a.m. Jan. 25 at the gallery at 1808 Chestnut St. The 500-lot auction also features fine porcelains from the Far East, silver, and some bronzes, as well as a large collection of walking canes from the collection of Robert Pearson. It will be followed by another session beginning at noon Jan. 26 devoted to Oriental rugs and carpets.

The gold and silver to be offered at mid-session on Jan. 25 was salvaged between 1984 and 1986 from two Spanish wrecks, according to descriptions and provenance in the auction's online catalog (see www.freeman'sauction. com). Last sold at Christie's in New York in 1988, they all "exhibit the stamp of the arms" of Philip IV of Spain.

The catalog description notes in detail that the complex system of marking on the silver and gold bars was "designed to ensure that the Quinto Real or Royal Fifth was paid to the Spanish Crown." In return for this tax payment, the Crown allowed free enterprise to exploit the enormous gold and silver deposits of the New World. An additional mark was instituted in 1579 to indicate payment of a 11/2 percent tax designated for the melter, assayer, and chief marker.

Five of the lots were recovered in 1985 and 1986 from one of the best-documented Spanish shipwrecks in the Caribbean, the Nuestra Señora de Atocha (Our Lady of Atocha): a silver bar weighing 39 pounds and 3.68 ounces with a presale estimate of $15,000 to $20,000; an 87-pound, 5.6-ounce silver bar dated 1621 with a presale estimate of $35,000 to $45,000; a 50-pound, 11.84-ounce silver bar, also dated 1621 ($20,000 to $30,000); a 31/8-inch, 4.14-ounce segment of a 20-karat gold "finger" bar bearing three traces of the royal tax stamp ($8,000 to $12,000); and an 8-inch, 14½-ounce, 21-karat gold bar with nine traces of royal tax stamps, stamped four times with the karat mark XXI and once with a mint stamp ($25,000 to $30,000).