8 Escudos - Fernando VII Colonial Milled Coinage

Fernando VII never set foot in the Americas, and by the time these Lima strikings began in 1808, he was already a prisoner of Napoleon at Valençay. The Lima mint continued striking in his name throughout his captivity — a colonial administration performing loyalty to a king who had no throne to sit on. The political tension embedded in these coins is considerable: within a decade, the same mint would be striking republican coinage for the nation that had just expelled Spanish rule entirely.

The 1808 transitional issues are particularly scrutinized by specialists, as the assayer marks shifted during that year's production.