2 Reales - Fernando VII Guanajuato - Royalist Coinage

Guanajuato's royalist coinage of 1821–22 occupies an uncomfortable historical position: struck in the name of a king whose empire was dissolving around the mint itself. Fernando VII never visited the Americas, yet Mexican mints continued producing coins in his name even as Iturbide's Army of the Three Guarantees swept toward Mexico City. The Guanajuato mint had been seized, recaptured, and fought over repeatedly since Hidalgo's forces sacked the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in 1810.

These final royalist issues were struck for only a matter of months before independence was formally declared in September 1821, making the 1821-dated pieces transitional in the strictest sense — coined under one sovereign, spent under another.