Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Real - Philip IV
| Issuer | Casa de la Moneda de Potosí |
|---|---|
| Year | 1652 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Latin |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
1652 is the year of the Santa Margarita and Nuestra Señora de Atocha disaster — but more consequentially for Potosí, it is the year the Spanish Crown discovered that the assayer Francisco de la Casa had been systematically debasing colonial silver for nearly a decade. The resulting scandal shuttered the mint entirely in mid-1652, with all assayers arrested and several executed. Coins struck in the months immediately before the closure carry the disgraced assayers' initials and were officially ordered recalled, though vast numbers remained in circulation.
The 1 Real cob from this mint and year sits at the center of that crisis.