Author: rodolfo

A powerful gentleman is money… Quevedo told us. Those of us who collect coins are aware of collecting money, and that it is one of the most valued objects by its contemporaries (and also by future collectors… hehe). But I think it never hurts to think about what exactly money is, how it is created and where it goes.

What it is seems easy to define, it is an object that allows goods and services to be exchanged between people. Historically various objects have been used as money, up to coins, invented in Asia Minor around the s. 7th BC Archeology shows us testimonies of trade between Homo Sapiens, long before agriculture was a reality, and therefore, objects were exchanged, although probably not money (this explains the presence of shells thousands of kilometers from the coast, or the scattering of certain objects). We know that in Sumerian Mesopotamia grain was used as currency, since everything referred to it, but using grain as currency is too complicated, due to the volume it reaches when you want to buy things of great value. In the Bronze Age, we know of ingots that were used as currency, although of course, they could be turned into tools, hence their value. That everyone agrees to give value to objects without utility, or intrinsic value, was a radical change. People tend to think that silver and gold have a value, and that the big change was to use pieces of paper, but really, silver and gold have no more value than what we want to give them. They cannot be eaten, they cannot be turned into useful tools like steel ones… it is true that in today’s technological world, they have industrial benefits, but they do not justify the extra price paid for these precious metals.

They say that when the Spanish arrived in America, the natives did not understand the great value that the Spanish placed on gold. Cortés said that the Spanish had a disease that could only be cured with gold… 😉 In any case, whenever two cultures have come into commercial contact, they have ended up equating the value of goods, and the relationship between them. The process is simple. If in one culture something is valued more than it is not valued in another, trade will seek to balance them. If in London they give me 50 silver for a Kg of gold, and in Rome, they give me 25… With an initial 1 Kg of gold, I will buy 50 Silver in London, and I will obtain two Kg of gold in Rome, so I will have doubled my merchandise, and will continue to do the same thing over and over again. In the end, gold will be scarce in Rome, and silver will be abundant, and prices will eventually come closer. Examples of this process have occurred on many occasions, but I will remember that of Japan in 1854, after its reopening to world trade, which implied a collapse of its monetary system. In Japan at the time, gold was trading at 1 to 5 with silver, when the trade in the rest of the world was about 1 to 16. The gold left Japan. If we compare this ratio, with the 1 to 73 that is being paid at the time of writing this, we see how the ratios have evolved over time.

And it is that money has managed to get everywhere. The Christians of the Iberian Kingdoms, exchanged Andalusian currency that affirmed that Muhammad was the prophet of the only God, with the same lack of problems that the Muslims could use Venetian ducats with Saint Mark on one side. Money broke all cultural barriers, allowing exchange between cultures, and depending on how we want to understand it, collaboration between them. In fact, if we think about it, the most important contribution of money is that, it allows us to plan and manage the occupation of people. Within a capitalist society, capital accumulations allow the most diverse companies to be carried out, being able to distribute work in complex and flexible ways that allow adaptation to unforeseen situations. But we must not forget that it only has the value that we assign to it!

And with this thought, and since we are on the brink of an economic crisis, we can think about their real importance. If money has no value, what is an economic crisis? Well, if we examine the effect, almost all of them are caused by bubbles, that is, the assignment of an exaggerated value to some good or company, when it is not justified. This causes a part of the economy to become richer (or feel richer), increasing its spending, and then when the price of the item adjusts, spending habits adjust as well, cooling the economy. That is to say, money allows the distribution of people’s employment, to respond to the needs of society, and the end of a bubble requires an urgent reorganization, leaving many people unemployed.

But in this case, we are facing a different crisis. I think it will end up affecting these spending habits, but it seems more artificial than real. During confinement, spending on services is over. That is, most of the primary sector continued to function normally, including the secondary. It really was the services that came to a screeching halt. But services, in my opinion, are the steamiest part of the economy… if I don’t cut my hair, and do it at home, but give the money to the hairdresser… would anyone notice the difference? the same happens with the bar, restaurant, massage, plane, hotel… so… if as a State, I start giving money to all these businesses… What happens? Well, I will need more money, that I can take it out of taxes or public debt (print bills as necessary). If I take it out of taxes, I will take it out of all of us who have not spent on these services, and if I do it with debt, I will end up printing more banknotes and causing, at least in principle, inflation (and in the end the value of the money that have). In any case, if with the return to normality, and after having subsidized those who have suffered the most (ERTES…), we recover our spending habits, the crisis would be a parenthesis, and we would have that famous V-shaped recovery. But if you do not subsidize those who have not been able to work all this time, or previous habits are not recovered, that V-shaped recovery is impossible.

In any case, printing banknotes is a form of speaking, because printed money and currency is negligible with respect to circulating money, and this brings me to the future of money. It seems clear that, although with great sorrow for collectors, the coins will end up disappearing. Almost all of our spending is done with cards, mobile phones… and the pandemic has further accelerated this trend. Physical money, every day seems more a thing of the past…

There are all kinds of slabs, but today I am going to talk about coin encapsulation by independent grading and certification companies. Surely you have seen coins encapsulated in small plastic cases that bear a short identification of the coin, the grade of conservation attributed to it and an identification number of the capsule. Well, at first it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, because it manages to make a coin with a lot of details about its condition become an object that can be summarized in a number on the Sheldon scale (from 1-70).

Indeed, an attempt is made to objectify a highly variable object, to simplify it for investors without knowledge… and it can be said that they have been very successful, only thus are the important price differences due to barely perceptible changes from MS64 to MS65, or from MS65 to MS66. On the PCGS page, one of these services, they have a price guide, and we can see, for example, that a Morgan Dollar from 1878 Carson City mint goes from being worth $550 in MS64 to $1,500 in MS65 and $4,000 in MS66 . A very subtle difference to most collectors and dealers.

https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/morgan-dollar/744/most-active

I know that the market has imposed the desire for better preserved pieces, but I think that I am not the only one who does not detract from the value of the pieces in circulation, and who considers each coin to be a historical witness of a unique moment, and a reflection of those who lived and gave value to that currency. Personally, I have always considered conservation as an important aspect, but above all because of not going back on it. In other words, whoever has an XF coin could patiently take it to an VF, even if it makes no sense, but a VF can never be an XF again… This is obvious, and I think it justifies a differentiation in prices. In addition, there are series that are extraordinary beautiful in MS, and which are far uglier even in AU. For example, I can think of the series of silver Escudos (2.5, 5 and 10) from Portugal from 1932-1951 that, with little wear, already look really bad. But apart from these cases, I think that the evolution of prices in the market is unleashed by speculation. Speculation, on the other hand, fueled by these certification companies, because I am convinced that without them, no one would venture to pay those price differences for such subtle changes. In the end they make speculation possible. On the other hand, they are not perfect… I think this example says it all:

https://www.sixbid.com/en/heritage-auctions-inc/1104/spain/1028747/republic-10-centimos-1938-km756

10 centimos from the Second Spanish Republic from 1938 in MS61… typical forgery to fill in the gaps, of which I myself bought one as a child for 100 pesetas… luckily it wasn’t sold… and not only that, it’s withdrawn from the Heritage website, because it’s a major slip… And this is part of the problem… you trust one of these companies and relax vigilance, and what’s worse, this is a gross fake, but… What if it was a decent fake? By putting it in the capsule, you cancel part of the controls you can do, especially the edge…

Therefore, and as a summary, these companies have facilitated the creation of somewhat clearer graduation standards, since there are already millions of encapsulated pieces out there, and although it is true that there is a certain inflation of conservations (https://www. coinworld.com/news/precious-metals/gradeflation-encourages-mutually-profitable-resubmissions.html), I think overall they have helped improve the picture. But the price is a rampant speculation that benefits the companies themselves and the speculators, making it easier for investors to make entries in numismatics, without the necessary knowledge. And on the other hand, to keep the coins away from the collector who can no longer touch them, and also make it even more difficult to store the collection. For those who are looking for a few valuable coins, it’s fine, but for the crazy ones who like to collect very different things…

Grade is the state of wear in which a coin is. It is the main parameter that affects the price of a coin, and for this reason it has become an element of hot discussion between collectors and dealers. This situation is compounded by the fact that, for many years now, there have been companies that have specialized in certifying the grade of conservation of coins and encapsulating them. I will talk more about these companies in another post, but I have no choice but to refer to them in part as well.

For the moment, it is said that the problem becomes more complicated when one tries to pass the conservation standards from one country to another. I think that much of the confusion for those of us who deal with “international” currency is the mix between American standards and “traditional” Spanish ones (or french, german and even british). In this globalized world, with platforms like Sixbid, Numisbids, emax… etc. that present auctions from all over the world within the reach of a click, this problem has grown. Originally I had decided to use the American system with literal translation, which is what the Standard Catalog of World Coins (KM) proposes in its first pages, where we can find a table like this:

Really, the Spanish system does not correspond to this conversion as soon as we see a few auctions from Vico, Cayón, Aúreo… In fact, I have included the French correspondence, because it is more similar to ours, and French companies such as CGB have made a more adequate conversion of the scales, which I will discuss below. But to better understand this conversion, it is necessary to talk about the Sheldon scale. In 1949, William H. Sheldon presented his conservation scale based on 70 points, for the correct graduation of American cents. The ANA, the American numismatic association, adopted it with certain modifications and in the 1970s extended it to all American coins. This scale complements by providing more information to the degrees mentioned above. Not all numbers are used, and more or less the sequence is as follows. PO1, FR2, AG3, G4, G6, VG8, VG10, F12, F15, VF20, VF25, VF30, VF35, XF40, XF45, AU50, AU53, AU55, AU58, MS60-70. As we can see, with respect to the simplified table above, we have the FR, or Fair that would be between Poor and Good, then clarify that MS is “Mint State”, and therefore equivalent to UNC, and finally the inclusion of AU, or about uncirculated between XF and UNC. This scale is more complicated to apply due to its complexity and subtlety, especially in the MS grade. And it is here where certification companies such as NGC or PCGS have specialized, extending the scale to all “modern” currencies in the world.

Well, if we look at CGB, its sequence is as follows, M1, AB3, B6, B10, TB15, TB20, TB30, TB35, TTB40, TTB45, TTB48, TTB50, SUP55, SUP58, SPL63, FDC65, FDC70. And as is clear, they have kept the Sheldon numbering. Therefore, we can see that the correspondence table presented by KM breaks down, but we have a more appropriate correspondence to the traditional French or Spanish scale. In it, focusing on the important part, we would have the following table:

And here we can see one of the biggest problems. When translating literally, many people with no experience in the international market convert EBC to XF, being happy or disappointed, since it corresponds more to an American AU. In the past, I chose to use a system more similar to the one presented by KM, because I thought that they would end up harmonizing below, as is usually the case with these things. We would all rather be told our currency is AU (which literally looks like SC-), than be told what EBC is. But I have decided that it is better to try to explain and adapt the sheldon scale.

On this PCGS page, you can see more about their criteria:

https://www.pcgs.com/grades

In any case, today with the omnipresence of photos on auction web pages, it is true that the indicated degree of conservation has gone into the background for circulated coins, since you can see the photo to distinguish for yourself. But the market has gone crazy on the uncirculated grade (11 grades total on the Sheldon scale, and prices sometimes doubling or more going from one to the other), and that’s where the need for external certifiers, about which I will talk in another post.

It’s been more or less a year since I wrote any entry, but we’re going back in a big way, with the numismatics of one of the most complex countries there is… Afghanistan.

The first era in which coins could have been minted in the area would be the Achaemenid, since in the west of the same empire were the areas where the coin was born, and at least in the western area there were coinages of darics and centuries.

Thanks to the treasure found in Kabul in 1933, it is suspected that during the Achaemenid control of the region, local types imitating Greek coins were minted, and that they possibly influenced the counter-marked Indian coin (more information at https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Kabul_hoard ). These pieces are very rare, as they were unpublished types before the discovery of this little treasure. What this treasure also confirms is that the Greek coin had reached the Indus Valley during the Achaemenid period and therefore before Alexander’s conquests.

Later we have this conquest of Alexander, and the Hellenistic era, in which the Greek currency was already going to circulate in a generalized way. From the early Macedonian period, we have abundant coinage of Sophites, who is assumed to have been a satrap prior to the Seleucid empire. Curiously, in the time of Alexander, some of the main cities of the country were founded, such as Herat or Kandahar.

And the Seleucid empire arrived, which did have more coinage in this remote geographical area. After the death of Alexander, Seleúco becomes one of the successors, and assumes control of these distant lands. Below is an example of Seleucid coinage in the area.

And we arrive at one of the Hellenistic kingdoms best known for its numismatics… Bactria. The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was born when Diodotus, satrap of Bactria, separated from the Seleucid Empire, becoming King. This kingdom is not well known outside of numismatics, and in fact, the date of independence is not even an established fact, the two main theories being that it was in 255 or 246 BC.

This Kingdom has impressive mintages, but here I bring a humbler one from Eucratides, but very interesting because it is a bilingual coin, with legends in Greek and Karosti. In fact, these coins and those of the Indo-Greek Kingdom were used to decipher these writings.

This Kingdom will have several dynasties, as Euthydemus will overthrow Diodotus II, starting his own dynasty, and later Eucratides will take control. The wars with the Parthians will totally weaken the Kingdom that will end up at the mercy of the nomadic tribes.

The Indo-Greek Kingdom will last longer, created after the incursions of Demetrius, son of Euthidemus in northern India (present-day southern Afghanistan and Pakistan). This Kingdom will survive the fall of the Greco-Bactrian, but it will also succumb to the Scythian expansion at the beginning of our era. The mintages are even more abundant than those of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and practically all of them are bilingual. Here is an example from Hermaeus.

And with these latest coins of Greek heritage, I end the first part of this review of the numismatics of this incredible country.

As a summary, we have seen:

• Achaemenid Kingdom (530-330 BC), Greek imitation coins
• Under the Macedonian Kingdom (330-301 BC), coins of satraps such as Sophites
• Seleucid Empire (301-255 or 246 B.C.)
• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (255 or 246-130 BC)
• Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC-AD 10)

The name of this blog and store is inspired by an old Yahoo newsgroup, still alive (although dying like all these groups), with the same name https://ca.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/everycountry/info

I found that group looking for information on coin issuing authorities and it was like an epiphany, because it fit like a glove to what I had been trying to do for so long without knowing it.

The group had been made up of people with a hobby of collecting a coin from every different political regime around the world. In other words, if we started in Spain in 1936, we would collect a coin from the Second Republic, one from Francoism, and another from democracy, but also one for each regional and municipal authority that minted coins during the war, Euzkadi, Santander, Palencia and Burgos…etc.

If we also add pretenders like the one above, entities that are not governments, tokens… things get even more interesting

It is therefore easy to understand that the number of coins to be collected in this way multiplies to several thousand, and that is without going beyond the late Middle Ages, which is where this group generally stops investigating. Only in some cases, such as China, where the transition from ancient times is well established, is the full picture seen.

I think it’s an exciting process, and the group had very active times, discussing governments and transitions. The truth is that there are many cases with great complexity, such as the German states, or even some more unlikely ones such as the last years of Fiji.

In this Blog I will try to go deeper into what was done in the group, changing the organization that was used in that group, and delving deeper into time. With respect to the organization, I will start from the countries that exist today, looking at what has happened on their borders. This implies that empires that covered many countries need a coin for each country that currently exists, using the location of the mints to assign the coins to a country. For example, from the Ottoman Empire, we will thus have coins from Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia or Romania, for example, without leaving Europe.

I begin a journey through all these times that I sincerely hope will be of interest, trying to ensure that the coins in the store also always have curious locations.

The title of King of Jerusalem, is one of the official titles of our monarch Felipe VI. But where does this title come from? Did the Bourbons ever really reign there?

Let’s see how the title is born, and how it reaches our monarch… Godfrey de Bouillon, conquers Jerusalem at the head of the first crusade in the year 1099, and takes the title of King of Jerusalem.

The title passes reasonably until the fall of Jerusalem itself and the death of most of its successors. Thus, when the third crusade arrives (of the most famous with the participation of Ricardo Corazón de León and Felipe II Augusto of France), there are two contenders for the title. Guido de Lusignan, consort of Sibila, but who loses the right to the title when his wife dies, and Conrad of Montferrat, married to Sibila’s sister.

Conrado is favored and Ricardo sells Cyprus to Guido to compensate him. Despite this, Guido continues to use the title of King of Jerusalem until his death. However, Conrad dies as soon as he takes possession, at the hands of the assassins, and his wife Isabella marries Henry of Champagne and, after his death, with Aimery de Lusignan, Guido’s brother, who had already inherited Cyprus from his father. brother.

Again fate is capricious. After Saladin’s death, the Ayyubid kingdom disintegrates, and Aimery awaits the fourth crusade to conquer Egypt, but it will never come, as he ends up conquering Constantinople, and Aimery and his wife Isabella die having started the attacks. Queen Isabella’s youngest daughter with Conrad of Montferrat, Maria. Maria marries Juan de Brienne and dies after giving birth to his first daughter, Isabella. The pope confirms John as King of Jerusalem until his daughter can take over.

The fifth crusade focuses on Egypt with the conquest of Damietta and the wait for the arrival of Emperor Frederick II. But Federico does not arrive and al-Kamil recovers Damietta by overflowing the Nile. Juan de Brienne wanders around Europe asking for help and Federico agrees to marry his daughter Isabella. Isabella dies giving birth to her first son Conrad IV who will never go east.

Denier minted by John of Brienne at Damietta

In any case, Frederick still did not leave for the holy land and the pope excommunicated him in 1227. He commanded an advanced army, and in 1228 he led the sixth crusade and did finally go to the Levant. His army was not large due to the excommunication, but without a doubt his mere presence was enough to obtain important cessions from the Ayyubids without a single battle. Thus, he obtains the cession of Jerusalem and other important cities for Christianity, but the opposition of the papacy means that they are not really integrated into the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, John of Brienne (Frederick’s ex-father-in-law), leads the papal army that invades Frederick’s lands in Italy, and forces Frederick to return to Italy. On the other hand, in the holy land the so-called War of the Lombards intensifies between the imperial side and the local nobility, identified above all by the Ibelins and the Montforts. Finally the local side wins when Conrado comes of age. Conrad dies in 1254 and inherits his rights his son his Conradin, but neither will ever go to the holy land, and local nobles control the regency. With the death of Conradino in 1268 at the hands of Carlos de Anjou, disputes began again.

Imitation dirhem minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1251

Thus, Hugh III of Cyprus and Mary of Antioch dispute the Kingdom, but the Jerusalem courts reject Mary’s candidacy and Hugh is established as King of Jerusalem. However, in 1277, Maria sold her right to the throne of Jerusalem to Charles of Anjou with the approval of the pope. Hugh, fed up with the squabbling in the Kingdom, had left for Cyprus the previous year, and for the remainder of his reign it would be effectively under Angevin control.

After the Sicilian vespers the situation of the Angevins changes, having to send troops back to Sicily to defend the fiefdom against the Aragonese. Thus, when Hugo III dies, Carlos de Anjou continues to dispute the throne of Jerusalem with Juan I, but when Henry II of Cyprus inherits the throne of his brother with Carlos de Anjou already deceased, he will have no problem regaining control of the Kingdom .

Gros of Henry II of Cyprus with the Jerusalem cross on reverse

The Mamluks had become more belligerent towards the Crusaders since Baibars replaced Qutuz in 1260, and they had gradually driven the Franks out of all the cities. In 1291 the final conquest of Acre, Beirut and Sidon takes place, and Henry II flees to Cyprus where he will continue to use the title of King of Jerusalem.

This Cypriot line will continue to use the title of King of Jerusalem with a division into two lines due to internal disputes. One that will end up in the house of Savoy and the kings of Italy, and another in the Republic of Venice (where Caterina Cornaro deposited her rights). The other important line would be the Angevin line, where the Kingdom of Jerusalem was considered feudatory of the Kingdom of Naples from the moment Charles of Anjou bought the rights of Mary of Antioch with papal approval. That is why when the Aragonese conquer Naples, they also take the title, and in this way it reaches Felipe VI, which is where we wanted to go from the beginning. So no, the Bourbons have never reigned in the holy land, and the closest the Aragonese were, were the dalliances of the Almogavars and the counties of Athens and Neopatria.

The Almogavars were light shock troops, whose origin and name go back to groups of robbers from Al Andalus. The Aragonese were the first to adapt their tactics, and for this reason their light infantry was called in this way. But when they really became famous, and for what they are remembered centuries later, it was for the activity of a group of these in the Byzantine empire at the beginning of the s. XIV.

Thus, in 1302 a group of Almogavar mercenaries under the leadership of Roger de Flor, most of them veterans of the war in Sicily (unemployed after the peace of Caltabellota), are hired by the Byzantine Empire to help in the reconquest of places in Anatolia.

The great Catalan company, as it was called, arrived in Constantinople at the beginning of 1303, and with its arrival, sparks flew, first with the Genoese, leading to a strong conflict between the two. Finally, the emperor sends the Almogavars on his mission, and they reap victory after victory against the Turks, even in strong numerical inferiority as in the battle of Aulax, after which they manage to lift the Turkish siege of Philadelphia

After securing the area, they occupy Magnesia, under Byzantine rule, raising anger among the local leaders, who see Roger de Flor not as a mercenary, but as a true governor of Anatolia.

Leaving a garrison in Magnesia, along with the treasures confiscated to date, the Almogavars continued to sow panic among the Anatolian Turks, scoring a great victory at the Battle of Kibistra, against a vastly outnumbered enemy again. But when they returned to Magnesia from Cilicia, where they arrived harassing the Turks, they saw that the detachment left behind had been eliminated, so they laid siege to the city. Emperor Andronicus II again called the Almogavars to the aid of the Bulgarian tsar to quell an uprising, where they went, lifting the siege.

The excesses of the Almogavars against the Greek population throughout this journey, plus the ambitions of Roger de Flor, made them many enemies, and finally, at a banquet to which they had been invited by the emperor in Adrianopolis, Roger de Flor was assassinated. along with 100 Almogavar knights. The order was given by the emperor’s son and co-regent Michael. Later they tried to finish off all the Almogávares that remained without success, coming to lay siege to Gallípoli where they were. The Almogavars finished off the Byzantine army and plundered the regions of Macedonia and Thrace for years, leaving for posterity a memory of limitless violence, known as Catalan revenge.

In 1311, after not receiving the agreed payment for their help, they conquered the Duchy of Athens and named King Frederick II of Sicily Lord. In 1318 and 1319 they added lands from Thessaly and formed the Duchy of Neopatria united to that of Athens. They kept these duchies under Aragonese sovereignty until 1388-1390, when they fell under the Florentines, associated with the Navarre Company.

It seems clear that the Catalan company must have minted coins, but there are no types in the name of the Aragonese King. It is assumed that they kept the previous types, although this does not make much sense either. Pieces in the name of Guy II are attributed to the later Florentines, with a dot on the cross on the obverse and with a very peculiar style from the legends, and therefore, it is assumed that the Catalans did the same. While Metcalf thinks that some of the normal types could be from the Catalans, Malloy attributes to these the anonymous types that Metcalf attributes to the Guy I minority, which makes clear the mess that exists in the attributions of this period.

Malloy also attributes to them the large number of types with unintelligible captions that were produced at the time, but more like these faux period pieces, which certainly need further study.

Hello, I start the blog of the store with one of the grandfather’s war stories.
Actually, I am going to tell you something that I read a long time ago, and that I found shocking. Not because I like battles or anything like that, but because of how curious it seems to me that everyone has heard of Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar in Spain (and that we lost), and yet hardly anyone has heard talk about this battle of Cartagena and Blas de Lezo.

I must admit that since I read this story the first time, the public’s sensibility has changed, and many more people know this character, but anyway, I’m going to do the minimum tribute, remembering his exploits.

This legend is part of a very curious war called the Jenkins ear war.
You have to see if it has a literary name, and yet, nothing, they don’t tell this in schools…
This Jenkins was an English smuggler, intercepted by the Spanish and apparently had his ear cut off as punishment. The English warmongering side used it in the House of Commons to get the declaration of war.
Since the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, England had had the “permission ship” which was allowed to trade with the Spanish colonies (before that, trade was an exclusive privilege of the metropolis through the house of contracting). , but because it was insufficient, the English continued to resort to smuggling. English commercial power had really reached a point where they could aspire to dominate the entire American continent, and that is what they tried in this war.

His plan was to put an end to Spanish rule, through the conquest of the main ports of Spanish America, Havana, Portobelo, Veracruz and Cartagena.
In the action against Cartagena, they would find such a big stumbling block that they would be forced to end the war (well, it was finally framed within the war of the Austrian succession, ending the hostilities in America).
The numbers are incredible, some 27,000 English, distributed in 186 ships of various types, compared to 3,600 on the Spanish side and 6 ships of the line, plus of course the magnificent defenses of Cartagena.
It was the largest amphibious attack in history before the 20th century (Gallipoli and Normandy), and yet as I say, few people know about it. The fact is that surprisingly, the English did not achieve their objective, which caused the fall of the English prime minister Walpole.
Who achieved such a feat? Well, the Spanish admiral, Blas de Lezo y Olabarrieta, from Pasajes to be exact, and therefore Basque 😉

Great soldier and a peculiar guy of course, his nickname was legpalo or mediohombre (oneleg for the English). The battle of Cartagena is his last military action, since he died of illness at the end, but the man was made a chrome, without an eye, a leg, and with his right arm disabled (not from this battle, but from those that had fought throughout his life). Let’s go men like before… 😀
In short, such a victory over the English, and hardly mentioned in Spain, neither the battle nor the architect of it. Of course, we have to learn a couple of marketing things from the English…
I hope you liked the story. For more information

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_del_Asiento

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo