Good writeup. I'd like to see if you have any close ups of any of the coins. Some of the Colonial 8 reales you've posted appear to be Royals which today are very desireable: even holed. I visited a coin or rather a money museum in Brazil in late 2016, however, all of the older coins were replicas.
This is a thread from 2009, but I'm glad it was re-awoken because it's new to me. I really like the pictures of the punches. The the coins were made using non-hubbed dies which means each working die was engraved with all the elements that you see on the coins. Every unique letter, number, and design element had its own punch.
Great article + nice photo's too. The National Museum of Ireland used to have fantastic coin display cabinets when I was a child but, now that they have moved the numismatic collection to a new building, their displays are not quite as awe-inspiring as they were. Perhaps CoinTalk would consider putting all posts relating to numismatic museums on a special page and encourage the people that run these facilities to add info, links and photo's.
Glad you got to visit the museum back in 2009. If you are ever in Sweden go to the Royal Coin Cabinet in Stockholm. They have everything from the world's heaviest coin to Nobel medals.
Not interested in bulky coins ... but they have some great Hiberno-Norse coins in their collection ! I've only been to Sweden once - as a lifeguard at Tylosand Beach, nr Halmstad. - I didn't get much time for numismatics when I was there