8 Escudos - Carlos III

Carlos III's reign saw the Nuevo Reino mint at Santa Fe de Bogotá operating under the assayer system, where individual assayers — identifiable by their initials on the coin — bore personal legal responsibility for maintaining gold fineness. The transition in assayer marks visible across the 1785–1789 date range reflects normal personnel rotation, but any deviation from the mandated 22-karat standard could result in criminal prosecution under colonial mining law.

These are macuquina-to-milled transition years. By this period Santa Fe was producing fully milled coinage, a shift forced by Madrid decades earlier in response to widespread fraud in the cob-coin system that had plagued the colonial mints since the 1690s.