Blanca - Enrique IV diamond, Toledo

Enrique IV's monetary policies were among the most chaotic in Castilian history. The king authorized so many independent mints — at one point over 150 operating simultaneously, many privately run under royal license — that the currency collapsed in value and uniformity. The Cortes of 1462 and subsequent assemblies demanded reform repeatedly, and the blancas of this period vary wildly in alloy quality, with many pieces containing so little silver that contemporaries treated them functionally as copper. Toledo, as a royal mint, struck to somewhat higher standards than the licensed provincial operations, though billon composition still fluctuated considerably across the reign's final years.