1 Escudo - Felipe V

The 1732 date marks the introduction of milled coinage at Mexico City, when Felipe V ordered the transition from hand-struck macuquinas to mechanically produced coins — a reform driven less by aesthetic preference than by chronic fraud losses from clipping and counterfeiting. The escudo series was among the first denominations produced on the new machinery, making early-date examples witnesses to a fundamental restructuring of colonial mint operations.

Felipe V himself never saw Mexico; the reform was administered through viceregal bureaucracy and enforced under threat of prosecution for mint officials who delayed conversion of the old equipment.