XX Réis 'Vintém' - Filipe III Shield without castles

The "vintém" denomination had circulated in Portugal for over a century by the time Filipe III — Felipe IV of Spain — came to the throne in 1621, but the shield varieties struck under his reign carry a specific diagnostic absence: the castles were dropped from the royal arms on certain dies, a departure from standard Iberian heraldic practice that numismatists still attribute to hasty or poorly supervised die engraving rather than any deliberate policy. Gomes catalogues this as a distinct type precisely because the omission is consistent across multiple specimens, ruling out simple die damage.