1/2 Real - Enrique IV Seville

Enrique IV's later coinage is inseparable from the monetary catastrophe he created. Decades of debasing the vellón coinage to fund his wars and his court had so thoroughly destroyed public confidence that by 1471 silver fractional pieces like this were being hoarded on contact — they were simply too trustworthy to spend. The Ordenamiento of 1471 was a belated attempt to stabilize the currency, and the Seville mint's output under that reform is what this piece belongs to.

Seville's assayers during this window were working under direct pressure from the Crown, with quality controls tightened after years of unauthorized debasement at provincial mints.