THE HiISTORY OF SPANISH COLONIAL COINS IN THE NEW WORLD

Set Description
A collection of coins that illustraits the develpoment of the Spanish Viceroyalties in the New world, which would eventually change the monetary system of the entire world.

As the conquistadors Hernando Cortes and Francisco Pizarro built upon and expanded the initial explorations by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean region of the Americas, the Spanish crown began to realize by the 1520s that it was in charge of an enormous empire requiring extensive settlement and systems of control. It was challenged to control a frontier community thousands of miles from it's home base, and in parts of which the exact geography could only be vaguely surmised. To deal with this situation, the crown, located in the Spanish Kingdom of Castile, created two vast political jurisdictions called Vicerovalties, which together embraced most of the territory of the Western Hemisphere. One, known as New Spain (Nueva Espana), was created in 1535 and included all the Spanish provinces north of the Isthmus of Panama. The other, created in 1544, was centered in Peru, and covered all of Spanish South America from Panama to points south. This system of control remained unaltered for nearly two centuries. Nueva Espana and El Peru were each governed by a viceroy who was appointed by the King of Spain and acted in his name. As the king's personal representative, each viceroy had, as a critical part of his duties, the mission of ensuring that there was a steady and copious flow of gold and silver from the mines and mints of his viceroyalty into the royal treasuries of the Spanish mainland.

The driving forces of the Spanish conquest have often been enumerated as "God, gold, and glory." This is to say the conquest was movitated by a desire to spread the Catholic faith, to achieve fame, honer and even nobility as a member of Spain's invading armies, and to acquire the wealth that would presumably accrue to the individuals involved. However, few real riches were initially found and the colonizers became strapped to secure the necessities of life on a day to day basis. Survival required some form of commerce involving the sale of goods and services. By 1525 there was a flurry of petitions from the colonists to Spain requesting that a royal mint be established in New Spain. Responding to the interests of it's colonial leaders and it's own increasing desire for ever more gold and silver, the crown authorized the development of mints in Mexico and Santo Domingo (1535) and then later in Lima (1568) and La Plata/Potosi (1573). These were the foreunners of still other mints, Panama (1580), Cartagena (1622), Santa Fe de Bogata (16220, Cuzco (1698) and Guatemala (1733).

The Mexico mint was one of the great mints of Spanish colonial America and the first in the western Hemisphere. From it's initiation in 1536 until the last cob pieces were produced in 1734, it was a major source of nearly one-half of the world's silver supply and much of it's gold. It's 8 reales cobs, known as "reales de a ocho, pesos", and "pieces of eight," circulated throughout the world as a standard medium of exchange. The Mexico mint, along with the Viceroyalty of Peru's minting enterprise at Potosi, would see a run of cob coinage lasting about two centuries. During it's years of service the mint produced totals of roughly 765 million prsos in silver, 9 million pesos in gold and 200,000 pesos in copper. Mexico's sustained silver production was only equaled by that of Potosi. The mints production was generally of such high quality that it was not tainted by the scandles that routinely plagued the Potosi facility. It was therefore permitted by the spanish crown to retain it's famous shield style desigh beyound 1652, whereas Potosi not only was forced to change it's design, but was also under constant scrutiny by royal authorities.

The coinages of the Americas began with the Mexico mint which was located in the original Mexico City which Hernando Cortes had built directly on top of the ruins of the former Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1523.

The first silver coins minted are known as the Early Pillars and Waves design (1536-1544) and the Late Pillars and Waves Design (1544-1572) minted during the reign of Charles and Juana (1536-1556) and Philip II (1556-1598).

Set Goals
To acquire an example of each type of Spanish Colonial 8 Reale coin minted in the New World.