8 Escudos

Quito's mint had a troubled relationship with gold coinage. The Casa de Moneda there was one of the oldest mints in South America — established by the Spanish crown in 1572 — but by the mid-nineteenth century it was operating under the newly independent Ecuadorian state with chronically inconsistent bullion supplies and recurring disputes over assayer accountability. The 8 escudos pieces from this window frequently show subtle weight variations that fall just inside tolerance, a known consequence of those supply disruptions.

Ecuador abandoned the escudo system entirely in 1856 in favor of the peso decimal coinage, making this the final type struck at Quito in the colonial denomination structure.