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4 Escudos - Carlos III
| Issuer | Mexico City Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1762-1771 |
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| Composition | Gold (.917) |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | The crowned royal arms of Spain occupy the center of the field, displaying a quartered shield with the castles of Castile and lions of León, flanked by an ornate wreath of scrollwork and floral devices. A large royal crown surmounts the shield. The mint mark Mo and assayer initials MF appear in the lower portion of the field, flanking the base of the shield. The circular legend IN UTROQ FELIX AUSPICE DEO surrounds the central design. |
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| Additional information |
Carlos III's Mexican gold coinage of this period was struck under the "macuquina" or cob method — hand-hammered on irregular flans cut from cast bars — even as milled coinage had already become standard for silver. The mint's reluctance to retool the gold presses meant these escudos retained a medieval production method well into the Bourbon reform era, a bureaucratic inertia that Carlos III himself found embarrassing enough to mandate full mechanization by 1771, the terminal year of this type.
Cob gold from Mexico City is notoriously variable in centering and flan completeness. A fully struck, well-centered example is genuinely rare rather than merely desirable by convention.