Catalog
1/2 Real - Fernando VI
| Issuer | Spanish Monarchy |
|---|---|
| Year | 1747-1753 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Medal alignment ↑↑ |
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| Obverse description | Cob-style hammered flan of irregular shape with a centrally placed crowned shield of Castile and León, struck in low relief typical of macuquina coinage. The quartered arms display castles and lions in alternating fields, surrounded by the partial legend of the royal titulature. The strike is characteristically off-center and uneven, with portions of the legend weak or absent due to the nature of the cob-minting process. The overall design is crude yet consistent with colonial Spanish cob coinage of the mid-eighteenth century. |
|---|---|
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| Mintage | 1747 J - - 1748 J - - 1749 J - - 1750 J - - 1751 J - - 1752 J - - 1753 J - - |
| Additional information |
Fernando VI's half real was produced at the Mexico City mint during the cob (macuquina) to milled coin transition — a shift the Spanish Crown had been pushing through its American mints since the scandals of the 1690s, when systematic fraud at the Lima and Potosí mints exposed just how easily irregular cob coinage could be clipped or underweight without detection. By Fernando's reign the milled coinage was well-established in Mexico, though cob production lingered elsewhere.
KM#8 specifically covers the Mexico City issues of this short reign. Fernando VI died in 1759 having never visited the Americas, leaving monetary reform there largely to bureaucratic momentum rather than royal initiative.