1 Scudo - Carlo Spinola

Carlo Spinola's copper scudo from Ronco is a deeply unusual piece — the denomination "scudo" in copper rather than silver signals a fiduciary token issue rather than a proper trade coin, almost certainly produced to address a local small-change shortage endemic to the fragmented lordships of the Ligurian hinterland in the late seventeenth century. The County of Ronco was among the smallest and most obscure of the Italian imperial fiefs, a Spinola family holding that never commanded the minting infrastructure or bullion access of larger states.

MIR 515 is genuinely rare in the census. Surviving pieces are infrequently encountered outside Italian specialist sales.