2 Reales - Charles III

Charles III inherited the Spanish throne in 1759 and almost immediately pushed through the Pragmatic of 1771, which mandated the transition from cob-style macuquina coinage to milled portrait coinage across all American mints. Potosí, sitting at over 4,000 meters in the Bolivian altiplano, was among the last mints to complete the switch — the dies, equipment, and trained personnel required for milled coinage were not easily transported to one of the most remote industrial operations in the colonial world.

KM#43 spans the cusp of that transition. Pieces struck in the early 1770s may show inconsistencies in planchet preparation as the mint adjusted to new standards before the macuquina type was formally retired.