2 Reales - Carlos IV Numeral IV - Carlos III portrait

This type occupies an awkward transitional moment: Carlos IV had ascended the throne in December 1788, but Lima's dies still bore the portrait of his father, Carlos III, who had died that same month. Spanish colonial minting protocol required portrait changes to be authorized and new dies to be cut and shipped from Spain, a process that lagged the political reality by months or years. The result was coinage proclaiming the new king's numeral alongside his dead father's face — a minting anachronism that lasted through 1791 at Lima.