Catalog
4 Reales - Felipe V
| Issuer | Casa de Moneda de México |
|---|---|
| Year | 1733-1734 |
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| Value | 4 Reales |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central field bears the quartered Royal Arms of Spain within an ornate shield, displaying the castles of Castile and lions of León in alternating quarters, with the Bourbon fleur-de-lis in the base. The mintmark 'M' and assayer initial 'F' appear to the left of the shield, with the date partially visible along the left border. The entire device is framed by a beaded inner circle and a partial legend along the periphery. The coin exhibits the characteristic irregular flan shape of the macuquina (cob) coinage struck at the Mexico City Mint. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Reeded |
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| Additional information |
These are "macuquina" cobs — hand-hammered planchets cut from silver bars, then struck with dies that almost never landed centered or complete. The 1733–34 date range coincides with the final years of cob coinage at Mexico City before Philip V's royal decree mandating the transition to mechanically milled "columnario" coinage, a reform driven less by aesthetics than by the chronic fraud and clipping that plagued the cob system throughout the Spanish colonial world.
The 1715 Plate Fleet disaster, in which eleven ships sank off Florida carrying millions in cobs, had made the coin's irregular nature an imperial embarrassment — salvaged pieces were literally unverifiable as genuine. That scandal accelerated the minting reform these pieces sit just ahead of.