On December 10, the Swiss company ‘Numismática Genevensis’ will put up for auction a unique coin, the “Holy Grail of Navarrese numismatics”, according to historian Mikel Zuza: the 8 gold escudos of Philip VI of Navarra (IV of Spain) minted in Pamplona in 1652. It is a piece of which only this example exists and is highly coveted. The last time it was auctioned, in 2012, its price closed at 525,000 euros. On this occasion, the starting price will be 400,000 Swiss francs (426,375.60 euros at the exchange rate).
The rarity of this unique piece lies in its history, the story of a redress from the monarch to the Navarrese courts. Its origin dates back to what is known as the ‘Potosí Scandal’, one of the greatest economic frauds of the Modern Age that was committed in the Peruvian mint (Potosí was part of the viceroyalty of Peru until 1776), one of the most important in the world, and which consisted of the minting of coins with a lower silver content than they should have (they were 8 reales coins that should actually have a value of 6 as they had less silver). The scandal broke out in 1648 when some merchants detected it in Europe, even causing the Spanish colonial currency to begin to be discarded in some ports. This forced King Philip IV to take measures so that merchants around the world did not lose confidence in the Castilian currency.
The solution that was adopted was to collect all the false coins and re-mint them “in accordance with the law”, as explained by the historian Javier Bergua in his book ‘History of the currency of Navarra’. Given the volume of coins that had to be reminted, it was necessary to reopen mints that had been closed for some time. One of them was that of Pamplona, which during the reigns of the Catholic kings and Charles I had minted gold pieces, but during the reign of Philip IV it only had authorization to engrave copper coins for local circulation.
In this way, in the Pamplona mint between the years 1651 and 1652 coins were issued with the engraving of the Castilian coins ‘Philippus Dei Gratia Castelle et Navarrae rex’ (Philip king of Castile and Navarre by the grace of God ), without ordinal and with a reference to the monarch as king of Castile and Navarra. This fact was received as a great insult by the Navarrese courts, which considered the episode as an infringement of the jurisdiction, which stated that on the coins minted in Navarra only the coat of arms of Navarre and the specific Navarrese title would appear, in the case of Philip IV. of Spain, should come out as VI of Navarra. The Navarrese courts ordered the issuance of these coins to be stopped and sent a complaint to the monarch, which was accepted.
As compensation for the breach of the jurisdiction, Philip IV authorized for a short period of time in 1652 an extraordinary and very limited minting of the most important gold pieces of the kingdom (eight and four escudos), as well as the entire silver series, with the corrected legend ‘Philippus Sextus dei Gratia Navarrae rex’ (Philip VI king of Navarre by the Grace of God).
Thus, this coin of 8 escudos was minted from 1652 with the AP mint mark (Pamplona), whose obverse stamp was found in 1866 in the Archive of the Provincial Council of Navarra and which is today in the Museum of Navarra. The coin was minted with a hammer, when in Segovia the mint already had hydraulic technology that allowed coins to be engraved with a roller, and then it was revised by hand, which still makes it a more unique piece if possible.
The coin was described by the numismatist Aloiss Heiss in 1869 when the specimen was owned by the Count of Ezpeleta de Veire. Years later, the ounce passed into the collection of the Hispanic Society of America (HSA). It is the most valuable piece minted in the entire monetary history of the kingdom of Navarra and was last auctioned in 2012 for 525,000 euros.
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