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4 Escudos - Carlos III bust of Carlos III, regular type
| Issuer | Santiago Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1773-1788 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 29 mm |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of King Charles III facing right, depicted in the regular portrait type with elaborately curled hair tied with a ribbon at the nape, wearing an armored cuirass with decorative details. The effigy is rendered in high relief with fine engraving characteristic of the Santiago Mint. The circumferential Latin legend reads CAROL III D G HISP ET IND R, interrupted by the date at the base of the bust. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Carlos III's colonial gold coinage underwent a fundamental design shift in the 1770s when the "bust" portrait type replaced the older "macuquina" cob coinage across Spanish American mints. Santiago's adoption of the milled bust format was part of a Bourbon administrative drive to standardize and professionalize colonial currency — a project with as much to do with anti-counterfeiting and metropolitan control as with aesthetics. The Santiago mint had long been considered a secondary operation compared to Lima or Mexico City, and quality control was an ongoing concern for Madrid.
Dies for these issues were cut locally, which accounts for subtle portrait inconsistencies across the 1773–1788 run that specialists use to attribute individual strikes to specific assayers — the assayer's initials being the primary diagnostic point within the KM#33 type.