These pieces were struck during Felipe IV's emergency recoinage of the early 1660s, a desperate attempt to stabilize Castilian copper currency after decades of inflationary resellado policy had rendered the previous coinage almost meaningless. The crown had debased, countermarked, and re-countermarked vellón so aggressively since the 1620s that public trust in copper had effectively collapsed. The 1661 pragmatic mandated a new, lighter coinage to replace the old inflated pieces at a fixed exchange rate — a politically painful deflation that triggered widespread hoarding and riots in several Castilian towns.
Toledo's output during this window was substantial but inconsistently produced, accounting for the pronounced variation in diameter across survivors.
These pieces were struck during Felipe IV's emergency recoinage of the early 1660s, a desperate attempt to stabilize Castilian copper currency after decades of inflationary resellado policy had rendered the previous coinage almost meaningless. The crown had debased, countermarked, and re-countermarked vellón so aggressively since the 1620s that public trust in copper had effectively collapsed. The 1661 pragmatic mandated a new, lighter coinage to replace the old inflated pieces at a fixed exchange rate — a politically painful deflation that triggered widespread hoarding and riots in several Castilian towns.
Toledo's output during this window was substantial but inconsistently produced, accounting for the pronounced variation in diameter across survivors.