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8 Reales Ferdinand VII, Pattern

Issuer Bolivia
Year 1824
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Technique Milled
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Obverse description Draped bust of Ferdinand VII facing right, rendered in the Spanish colonial portrait style. The surrounding legend reads FERDIN . VII . DEI . GRATIA . with the date 1824 positioned at the base of the design. A line of bars runs close to the inner edge of the coin, serving as an inner border separating the effigy and legend from the rim. The portrait and inscription are struck in relief against a flat field.
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Obverse lettering FERDIN . VII . DEI . GRATIA . 1824
(Translation: Ferdinand the 7th., by grace of God.)
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Additional information

This is almost certainly a pattern struck in the final months before Bolivia declared independence in August 1824, when royalist authorities in Potosí were still nominally issuing coinage in Ferdinand VII's name despite Simón Bolívar's forces controlling much of the surrounding territory. The Potosí mint continued operating under shifting allegiances throughout the independence wars, and pattern pieces from this period reflect an administration trying to assert continuity it no longer possessed.

The reduced weight against the standard 27g colonial 8 reales suggests an experimental specification that never reached circulation — the new republic would render the question moot within months.

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