Catalog
2 Escudos - Felipe IV
| Issuer | Kingdom of Spain |
|---|---|
| Year | 1622-1655 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Real (1616-1820) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central design features a large Jerusalem cross with fleur-de-lis terminals set within a quadrilobe composed of two interlaced arcs forming four lobes, each containing a lion or castle from the Royal Arms of Castile and León. The cross divides the field into four quarters, each occupied by a heraldic charge rendered in low relief. The overall composition is enclosed within a double-beaded or plain inner border, with the surrounding field largely blank due to the irregular cob flan. The reverse design is characteristic of Spanish colonial gold escudo coinage of the first half of the seventeenth century. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Felipe IV's cob coinage — the macuquinas struck at mints across Spanish America and Iberia during this period — was produced by a system so loosely supervised that fraud became endemic. The 1640s saw a major scandal at the Potosí mint, where assayers had been systematically debasing silver coinage for years before the crown's inspectors caught it. Gold escudos from the same era drew scrutiny by association, though the gold assay process was generally harder to manipulate than silver.
The Hernández references spanning 700–703 indicate multiple mint and assayer combinations, each representing a distinct administrative moment in a reign that lasted 44 years across catastrophic wars, colonial upheaval, and serial bankruptcies.