Carlos III's colonial mints operated under the macuquina system well into the eighteenth century, but Santiago was among the first American mints ordered to transition fully to milled coinage — a reform driven less by aesthetics than by the crown's frustration with chronic short-weighting fraud on cob issues. The Santiago mint had received its screw presses decades earlier but conversion was uneven across denominations, and the fractional reales were consistently last to be standardized.
The KM#28 type spans the final sixteen years of Carlos III's reign, ending with his death in December 1788 — the 1789-dated pieces reflect posthumous striking under authorization already in place.
Carlos III's colonial mints operated under the macuquina system well into the eighteenth century, but Santiago was among the first American mints ordered to transition fully to milled coinage — a reform driven less by aesthetics than by the crown's frustration with chronic short-weighting fraud on cob issues. The Santiago mint had received its screw presses decades earlier but conversion was uneven across denominations, and the fractional reales were consistently last to be standardized.
The KM#28 type spans the final sixteen years of Carlos III's reign, ending with his death in December 1788 — the 1789-dated pieces reflect posthumous striking under authorization already in place.