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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;horge, post: 445918, member: 7167&quot;]Great stuff.</p><p>Strictly speaking though, <i>excelentes</i> were an older, and gold denomination.</p><p><br /></p><p>Spanish numismatic scholars hold that the <i>cincuentines</i> were minted primarily for </p><p>prestige, rather than actual use in transactions. All bullion was subject to being taxed </p><p>the royal fifths, and nobles possessing bullion on paper (meaning, in terms of grants </p><p>from the produce of royal mines) could only claim it in the form of coin. For disposable</p><p>wealth the coins were obviously specified in lower denominations, but for long-term </p><p>reserve the coins could be ordered in more extravagant sizes.</p><p><br /></p><p>The <i>Real Ingenio</i> <b>was</b> in a sense the actual roller press, and yes, it had been imported </p><p>by Felipe II from his kinsman, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. Shipped out from Innsbruck on </p><p>February 4th 1582, it was the first such minting machine in Spain, which had thitherto</p><p>merely hammer-struck its coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reason for importing the roller press, which was powered by two rivers, the Eresma and </p><p>the Manzanares, may have originally had little to do with silver or gold coin. Felipe II had wanted </p><p>a way to inflate the face value of baser, <i>vellón</i> coins wayyyy above melt*, without tempting </p><p>counterfeiters. The superior quality of strike provided by the <i>Real Ingenio</i>, was correctly </p><p>deemed difficult for counterfeiters to copy, and kept the <i>vellón</i> coinage safe from such </p><p>corruption... but I have digressed from the <i>cincuentines</i> of Felipe III.</p><p><br /></p><p>Why 50 <i>reales</i>? At first thought, there might logically have been a silver counterpart to</p><p>the stupendous <i>centén de oro</i> which as you indicated, had face value of 100 <i>escudos</i>. </p><p>However, a 50 <i>reales</i> coin of reasonable thickness was very close to the upper limit of </p><p>what the roller-dies&#039; limited surface area could contain.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have only seen a <i>cincuentín</i> once, and only in a glass case, in Madrid.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p>horge</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*<i>Vellón</i> coins were properly a much-debased silver. Felipe II and his successors drove </p><p>the silver content down to nothing, without devaluing the coin. With face so high above </p><p>intrinsic and manufacturing cost, counterfeiters would have chased after the same lucrative </p><p>&quot;seigniorage&quot;, had not the coins themselves been beyond their illicit art to copy. The story</p><p>of Spain&#039;s experiments in manipulating its <i>vellón</i> money is quite fascinating, and indeed</p><p>informs modern monetary theory.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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