1/2 Real - Philip III

Philip III inherited the Potosí mint at the height of its output — Cerro Rico was producing roughly half the world's silver in the late sixteenth century, and cobs like this one were the unglamorous workhorses of that torrent. Cut from a cast bar, hammered between crude dies, and clipped to approximate weight, macuquinas were never meant to be pretty. They were meant to move money across an ocean.

The assayer responsible for each cob struck his initial into the die, creating accountability within the mint — a system that would later expose the catastrophic fraud uncovered at Potosí in 1649, after Philip III's reign had already ended.