1 Escudo - Carlos IV

Carlos IV inherited the throne in December 1788, weeks after these coins began striking — meaning the earliest dated pieces of this type technically entered production before he was king. The Madrid mint, along with Seville and others operating under royal warrant, ran this denomination continuously through the upheavals of the French Revolutionary Wars and the disastrous Treaty of Basura, all while Spanish colonial silver was being quietly siphoned to fund alliances that would ultimately collapse the empire's finances.

The .875 fineness placed this squarely in the long Spanish escudo tradition rather than any wartime debasement — the gold held, even when the political situation did not.