4 Maravedis - Charles and Joanna countermark dog

The "dog" countermark — a perro in local usage — was applied to underweight or foreign copper circulating in the Canary Islands to validate it for local exchange at an assigned value. The archipelago had no mint of its own, and the chronic shortage of small change throughout the sixteenth century forced colonial administrators to authorize these countermarked pieces as a pragmatic workaround. The host coins beneath the stamp are often heavily worn Charles and Joanna maravedis, already decades old by the time the punch was applied.

The date range 1560–1577 reflects the known period of authorized countermarking, not production of the host coin itself.