2 Reales - Carlos III portrait

The portrait coinage of Carlos III issued from Lima represented a deliberate break from the cob-era and milled "pillar" designs that had defined Spanish colonial silver for generations. The shift was ordered by royal decree in 1771, partly to reduce counterfeiting and partly to project Bourbon reformist ambitions onto colonial currency. Lima was slower than Mexico City to fully implement the new portrait type, and early Lima strikes of this series show inconsistencies in planchet preparation that the Mexican mint had largely resolved by mid-decade.

Carlos III died in December 1788, ending the series. Coins dated 1789 from Lima are transitional, struck under his name before news of his death — and the subsequent design changes for Carlos IV — reached the viceroyalty.