1/2 Real - Felipe IV

Felipe IV's reign coincided with Spain's accelerating fiscal exhaustion — decades of war across Europe drained Castilian silver faster than the American mints could ship it. The Mexico City mint during this period operated under a cob coinage system, meaning each piece was hand-cut from a cast silver bar and hammer-struck without a collar, producing the irregular planchet shape characteristic of macuquinas. Quality control was notoriously inconsistent, and the mint was rocked by a major fraud scandal in the 1640s when assayers were found adulterating the silver content of cobs destined for remittance to Spain.

The half real was the smallest silver denomination in regular production, and survivors in any identifiable condition are scarcer than their larger counterparts simply because so few were carefully preserved.