2 Escudos - Carlos II milled

Carlos II, the last Habsburg king of Spain, ruled under regencies for most of his minority and was so physically and cognitively impaired by inbreeding that court factions effectively governed in his name for decades. The milled 2 Escudos series issued under his reign marks the Spanish crown's gradual shift away from the hand-struck cob coinage that had dominated New World mints — a transition driven less by aesthetic preference than by the catastrophic counterfeiting and clipping losses the cobs had invited for a century.

Cayon's cataloguing of this type reflects output from multiple mints, and attribution without a clear mintmark can be genuinely contested among specialists.