4 Maravedis - Philip II Pattern

Philip II's late-reign copper and billon coinage was plagued by counterfeiting so endemic that the crown spent the better part of two decades debating whether to abandon the maravedí system entirely. This piece dates to the period when royal minters were experimenting with composition and weight standards in direct response to that crisis — the billon content here is negligible, essentially a copper coin with a technical silver classification.

The "pattern" attribution suggests this never reached ordinary circulation, likely a mint trial submitted for royal approval during the monetary reform discussions of the 1580s and 1590s.