8 Escudos - Felipe V

Felipe V spent much of his reign locked in dynastic conflict — first the War of Spanish Succession, then the War of Polish Succession, then the Anglo-Spanish War — and the colonial mints existed primarily to fund it all. Santa Fe de Bogotá's 8 escudos from this decade were cob-style macuquina pieces, hand-hammered on irregular planchets, which means no two are identical in shape or strike distribution. The assayer's initial on these issues is critical to attribution; pieces from this window are associated with the assayer J (Joseph Matheo Velarde), whose mark anchors the Hernández 765–768 range.

Felipe V died in July 1746, making late-dated examples from that terminal year transitional pieces struck just as Fernando VI's accession restructured colonial mint administration.