I recently acquired a Mexican colonial coin, 1 Real from Carlos I. I'm new to Numista and been working on adding my coins little by little, but when I looked the coin up in the Catalogue it shows two kinds #MB19 and #MB9; I ended up registering it as #MB9 because it provided more information and had the option of choosing the letters M-L which my coin has, but still can't figure out what's the difference. If someone would enlighten me I would be profundly thankful!
Congratulations. You have got one of the oldest American coins. The correct name in Numista would be 1 Real - Juana and Carlos. There are more than 20 types with different letters, location of mintmark and initials, always w/o date, and lots of variants.
They are dated between 1536 and 1542 if there aren't waves under the columns, and 1542 to 1555 with waves.
You can select the record with the letters like yours. If they are M or M with a little o above at left of the shield and L at right of the shield, then it's MB#9.
M or M with o above is the mintmark of Mexico.
L is the initial of Luis Rodriguez, official of the mint who guaranteed the fineness. He worked in Mexico from 1550 to 1567. So your coin is (1550-1555) 1 Real - Juana and Carlos. May I see it?
Referee for Spain, Iberia (ancient), Suebi Kingdom and Visigothic Kingdom
Sorry for the quality of the pictures but I'm on the go. I'm really happy to hear this, the story behind the coin is a bit funny. I work with community development here in Guatemala, and this guy knows that I collect coins. So he brings it and tells me its a macuquino (that's what we call here the Klippe type coins), but he says he hasn't seen this kind as a Guatemalan coin before, I look at it and I remembered seeing it on a catalogue as a Mexican coin, I offered to find out and tell him, but he replies that he is in need of money and that $20 USD would be a fair price for it. So I went ahead a bought it without really knowing what I was purchasing.
