4 Escudos - Fernando VII Guadalajara - Royalist Coinage

Guadalajara's royalist mint operated under desperate circumstances during the Peninsular War, striking emergency coinage to fund loyalist resistance against both French occupation and insurgent forces. Fernando VII — still a prisoner of Napoleon at Valençay when this piece was struck — never set foot in New Galicia, yet his effigy anchored the monetary claims of a colonial administration fighting for survival on two fronts.

Cayon 128 survivors are scarce. The Guadalajara mint lacked consistent bullion supply and skilled die cutters, and production records from 1812 are fragmentary at best.