Carlos II, the last Habsburg king of Spain, ruled under severe mental and physical incapacitation for most of his reign — the product of generations of dynastic inbreeding. His death in 1700 without an heir triggered the War of Spanish Succession, which ultimately transferred Spain's American minting operations under Bourbon administrative control. Lima's cob-style gold production in these final Habsburg years was chronically irregular in shape and weight, struck by hand on rough cast flans with little concern for uniformity.
KM#28 pieces from 1698 are among the last macuquina-style escudos struck before Bourbon reformers eventually mandated the milled coinage that replaced them in the following century.
Carlos II, the last Habsburg king of Spain, ruled under severe mental and physical incapacitation for most of his reign — the product of generations of dynastic inbreeding. His death in 1700 without an heir triggered the War of Spanish Succession, which ultimately transferred Spain's American minting operations under Bourbon administrative control. Lima's cob-style gold production in these final Habsburg years was chronically irregular in shape and weight, struck by hand on rough cast flans with little concern for uniformity.
KM#28 pieces from 1698 are among the last macuquina-style escudos struck before Bourbon reformers eventually mandated the milled coinage that replaced them in the following century.