4 Reales - Felipe V Seville

Felipe V's early coinage from Seville is inseparable from the War of the Spanish Succession, which had broken out in 1701 when the Bourbon claimant took the throne following Carlos II's childless death. By 1704, the war had turned sharply against Felipe in Iberia — the Allies took Gibraltar in August of that year, and the Seville mint operated under considerable pressure as rival coinage circulated in contested territories. The cob format of this issue, hand-struck on roughly cut planchets, means no two pieces are identical.