2 Maravedis - Felipe II Burgos, low grade billon

Felipe II's billon coinage of the 1570s and 1580s was minted under chronic pressure — the crown's silver revenues from the Americas were increasingly pledged against Genoese banking debt before the bullion even reached Castile, leaving domestic small change perpetually underfunded. The Burgos mint, one of the older royal establishments in Castile, struck these fractional pieces to meet everyday transactional demand that silver reales never served.

Billon of this period degrades unpredictably in the ground, and genuine wear is often indistinguishable from corrosion at lower grades. Cal#779 encompasses several die pairings across this decade-long window, and mint attribution on low-grade survivors frequently relies on the assayer mark rather than the mintmark itself.