Images(4)

Master Coin Die

Date1789

Designer & engraver Pedro González de Sepúlveda

Mint Madrid

OriginEurope, Spain, Madrid

MediumSteel

DimensionsOH: 2 15/16"; OW: 2 3/16"

Credit LineGift of Kent Ponterio

Object number2015-342

DescriptionSpanish “master coin die" of tapering octagonal form. The working surface has crowned edges and carries the incuse bust of Charles IV, draped and cuirassed, as it appears on 2 escudos gold coins.
Label TextAfter the death of his father in late 1788, Carlos Antonio Pascual Francisco Javier Juan Nepomuceno José Januario Serafín Diego succeeded to the Spanish throne as King Charles IV. As was the custom throughout Europe, the beginning of a new monarch's reign necessitated the inclusion of his portrait on the coins struck by that country's mints, both home and abroad.

To ensure the uniformity of the coins struck at both mainland Spanish mints and the colonial facilities in the New World, high quality tools were made at the central facility at Madrid. These were dispatched throughout the empire, along with base metal samples of what the finished coins should look like. Sets of "master dies" were sent to the mints at Mexico City, Potosi (Bolivia), Santiago (Chile), Nuevo Reino (Colombia), Popayon (Colombia), Nueva Guatemala, and Lima (Peru). These masters were used to produce intermediary tools called "hubs" or "punches," which were then used to create the working dies which struck the actual coins.

This master die was used to create portrait hubs for use in the production of 2 escudos gold coins at an undetermined Spanish colonial mint in the Americas, and would have been in use between 1789 and 1808. Other master dies were for the production of numerals, letters, and coin design elements like crowns and pillars.
MarkingsWorking surface struck with two clipped-corner rectangular cartouches; one bearing a "Crown over M" (Madrid's mint mark) and 1789, and the other reading SEPULVEDA followed by a pellet. One side deeply impressed with a floriated cross.