1/2 Escudo

Bolivia's fractional gold escudo series was already an anachronism by 1868 — most of Latin America had moved toward decimal coinage, and Bolivia itself had been issuing decimal silver since the 1860s. This piece survived as a gold holdover from the colonial cob-and-pillar tradition, kept in production largely because small gold denominations remained trusted for private transactions in mining districts where silver coin was distrusted or in short supply.

KM#140 was struck at the Potosí mint, the same facility that had defined hemispheric silver production for three centuries — running gold in parallel, at fractional weights, almost as an afterthought.