8 Reales Ferdinand VII, Pattern

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.