4 Maravedis - Ferdinandus V and Elisabet I

A dating problem immediately confronts this piece: Ferdinand V died in 1516 and Isabella I in 1504, yet this type was struck decades after both monarchs were gone. The coins were authorized posthumously under Charles I and later Philip II, who continued issuing currency in the names of the Catholic Monarchs as a deliberate act of monetary conservatism — familiar types moved through Castilian markets without friction, and disrupting that familiarity carried real economic risk.

The billon content by this period was negligible, the silver so debased that these functioned essentially as fiduciary coinage long before that concept had a name.