10 Scudi - Francisco Ximenez de Texada

Francisco Ximenes de Texada served as Grand Master of the Order of St. John from 1773 until his death in 1775 — a tenure of barely two years, which makes his coinage among the scarcest in the Maltese series. The Order's mint at Valletta struck gold in relatively small quantities under any Grand Master, but Ximenes issues are consistently underrepresented in collections relative to his longer-reigning predecessors like Pinto de Fonseca.

The .840 fineness was a deliberate step below the traditional standard, reflecting ongoing fiscal pressure on the Order in the decades before Napoleon's bloodless seizure of Malta in 1798 ended Hospitaller coinage entirely.