1 Peso San Carlos Ship

The San Carlos was a Spanish frigate that carried the expedition of the Royal Scientific Commission to Cuba in 1862, tasked with cataloguing the island's natural history — one of the last major Spanish-sponsored scientific voyages to the Americas before Cuban independence movements made such imperial pageantry politically untenable. Cuba's numismatic program has long used tall ships as subject matter, partly for export collector appeal, and this issue fits squarely within that commercial series rather than commemorating any specific anniversary of the vessel.