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1 Real - Philip V

Issuer Casa de Moneda de Potosí
Year 1702-1728
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Value 1 Real
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Reverse description Two crowned Pillars of Hercules flanking a central globe or waves motif, with the denomination numeral I (for 1 Real) visible at top center. The mint mark and assayer's initial appear in the field, with a date partially legible in the lower portion of the cross quadrant. The reverse follows the standard macuquina type for early 18th-century Potosí coinage, with the legend HISPANIARVM ET INDIARVM partially visible around the irregular periphery of the cob flan.
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Reverse lettering HISPANIARVM ET INDIARVM
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Additional information

Philip V inherited the Spanish throne in 1700 as the first Bourbon king, triggering the War of the Spanish Succession and throwing colonial minting operations into administrative uncertainty for over a decade. Potosí, already reeling from the 1652 fraud scandal in which assayers had systematically debased silver coinage for years, operated under heightened crown scrutiny throughout this period. The macuquina — cob coinage — produced here was notoriously irregular by design, hand-cut from cast silver bars and hammer-struck on unstruck planchets with no pretense of uniformity.

The assayer initial on the cross side remains the primary tool for dating individual pieces within this 26-year span.