Glenn's Types of Spanish Pillars, Peru
Private
Updated:
11/30/2022
Views: 863
LIMA, VICEROYALTY OF PERU
To the south of the Viceroyalty of New Granada lay that of Peru, made up of three Captaincies-general. A columnario-producing mint was situated in each of these Captaincies-general. The most northerly, the Lima mint, was rebuilt after the great earthquake of 1746. It had only one mill and three screw-presses in working order by 1751, but gold and silver dies did not reach the mint until 31 October 1751. Coining started in December or early the following year with the minting of the first milled pillar coins, all dated 1751.
When the first mint had been founded there in 1565, the mark that had been adopted was a P. It had been replaced by a star in the Reign of Philip IV as a reminder that the city had been founded on 6 January, the day of the Magi. Later, this had been augmented by the letter L or L*M. In the reign of Charles II and the early years of Philip V's rule, the mintmark appeared twice on the obverse and once on the reverse of all Lima's coins.
Although Lima was 20 years behind Mexico City in starting to machine columnnarios, it switched from using the early to the late 5 in dates on it's coinage from the beginning of 1755, ten years before it's northern neighbor.
One of the most interesting idiosyncrasies of the Liman coinage of this era centers around the use of a pellet over the right monogram. With the eight and four reales, no doubt its occasional omission began because of its proximity to the base of the right Pillar of Hercules. If the date figures were close together the careful engraver with his feeling for balance would move the monogram slightly to the left and find that room for the pellet was lacking. So eight real pieces with and without dots over the right monogram are found from 1760 on, with the dotted variety becoming the scarcer from 1766 because once the practice had taken hold some engravers omitted it automatically even if sufficient space was available.
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Glenn's Types of Spanish Pillars, Peru
By oldgoatsboats
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