Portrait Types on Coins of Ferdinand VII

Portraits of Ferdinand VII on Spanish & Colonial Coinage:

A Brief Overview by Type

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This page is intended to provide both beginning and more experienced collectors with a comparative overview of the many different types of portraits or busts of Ferdinand VII found on Spanish and Spanish Colonial coinage between 1808 and 1833. As many of the different types as possible will be illustrated, with coins from my personal collection. For further information and current prices collectors should consult an up-to-date catalog.

This page is divided into three sections:

An Illustrated List of Coin Portraits of Ferdinand VII
Biographical Sketch of Ferdinand VII
The Spanish Monetary System, 1808-1833

I. Coin Portrait Types of Ferdinand VII

The first coins issued in the name of Ferdinand VII do not bear his portrait at all, but rather that of his father, Carlos IV. This was common practice in the Colonial mints, where it usually took months or years for Madrid to send them coin dies with the portrait of the new king. Coins showing Carlos IV, with the legend FERDIN.VII, were issued in beginning in 1808 by the mints of Guatemala, Colombia, and Santiago Chile, though not in mainland Spain. Semi-monetary coin-sized proclamation medals with portraits of the ex-king were also issued in many places. Only Colombia though used the abbreviation FERDND.VII., as shown by the 1 Real coin at left.

The type shown here is a 4 reales, issued in Valencia from 1809-1811. As can be seen beginning in 1809 some of the Spanish mints began issuing coins with accurate portraits of Ferdinand VII, although he was by then imprisoned in France. The bust may have been created from existing portraits. Note the lack of laurels on the bust; these would come later. The coins struck by this mint show some of the finest workmanship found on any Spanish coin of the day; note the fine detail in the medal on his chest. Similar, rarer types were struck at Reus, Cataluña.

This bust, also created in Valencia in 1809, adorned Spain's first coins to bear inscriptions in Spanish rather than Latin. The 1809 issue mentioned "Ferdinand VII King of Spain and the Indies" and carried an anti-French slogan on back, in response to Napoleon's invasion. Ironically the coin type was reactivated in 1823, as shown here, by the constitutionalists fighting Bourbon French troops --- troops summoned by the King, titled here as "Ferdinand VII by the Grace of God and the Constitution."

Meanwhile the Colonies all rejected Joseph Bonaparte as King and minted coins showing Ferdinand VII. But through 1811, most colonial mints had not received the dies to strike coins showing him. Therefore several mints created Imaginary Busts ranging from the Lima, Peru bust (which was not even close), to the Mexico City bust (slightly better), to this one, the Santiago de Chile "Admiral's" bust, used on 8 Reales of 1808-1811, 2 reales of 1810 and 1811, and 8 Escudos Gold of 1808-11. All of these are rare, with only 26,000 of this one, the 2 reales, having been minted.

Some of the more unusual bust types found in Spain arose from the prerogative some regions had of keeping their own currency, separate from the national one. This rather chubby bust is found on the 12 Dineros coins, 1811 and 1812 issues of the Baleares Islands, identifying the Monarch on reverse as "King of Spain and The Baleares" --- which in truth is one of the thirty or more titles the King of Spain holds.

Other mainland Spanish mints resorted to busts that, if not imaginary, reflected the strains of the war in their crudeness. Remember that much of the prewar Spanish minting apparatus was being used by King Joseph Bonaparte in the areas he controlled. This 8 Maravedis coin, minted in Jubia between 1811-1817, is technically well-struck but features a bust that bears only a superficial resemblance to the King, rather like a police sketch.

During the French occupation of Spain, while Bonaparte ruled in Madrid the resistance government met in Cadiz, passing Spain's first constitution there in 1812. Meanwhile in Madrid, the famine of 1812 began to seriously weaken Joseph Bonaparte's shaky throne. In 1812, coins showing Ferdinand VII were struck in Madrid for the first time, with the bust shown at left. In my opinion, this was probably the most accurate of all the portraits of the King used on coins. Note there are no laurels on the bust, as there would be later. Coins with this Madrid bust were struck valued at 1, 2, 4, and 8 reales. Oddly enough the 1813 2 Real issues featured a cruder reworking of this bust, making the 1812 an even scarcer type.

The type shown at left is the design which was finally adopted for coinage by nearly every Spanish mint in the world. It was created at the provisional mint in the provisional capital of Cadiz, in 1810. The colonial mints of Bolivia and Guatemala first received the dies in late 1811, but struck backdated coins of 1808 and 1809 with them. This design was eventually used on every value of Spanish coinage, from the copper 1 Maravedi to the 8 Escudo ounce of gold, and coins in this design were struck at every mint except those in Colombia, which apparently never received the dies and struck coins showing Carlos IV till 1820. This design was also reproduced in local forms with minor variations at the small mints of Durango, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas. It was last struck in the Americas by the last Spanish troops in Peru in January 1826, and in Spain almost every year up to the King's death in 1833.

The Colonial issues were generally identical to the Spanish ones, except for the reverse which identified the King as ruler of the Indies as well as Spain. These 1 Real issues do all seem to show the King's nose proportionally smaller than it appeared on the other coins!

A few early Gold issues featured a fully uniformed shoulder bust of Ferdinand VII. But by 1814, except in Colombia, the standard bust had been adopted for gold coins too, with one noticeable difference; the bust used on gold issues, such as this Half Escudo from Madrid, ended at the king's neck, rather than showing his shoulders and chest as on the silver coins.

The new portrait was still subject to crude local renderings, as this 8 Maravedis type shows, struck at Jubia between 1817 and 1821.

It helps to know the history behind a coin -- for more about the rule of Ferdinand VII, see below. One consequence of the revolt of 1820 appears to have been a brief change in Spanish coinage. Between 1821-1824 the portrait shown here of an older, heavier Ferdinand was used. Once the King seized back absolute power, the various Spanish mints began using the "younger" bust again --- on whose orders, one wonders?

There would still be a few unusual items and busts to appear before the end of this reign, mostly involving the regional copper coins of Navarre, like this 3 maravedis of a type struck in 1825 and 1826. It features a crude reworking of the bust above. Interestingly, since Navarre belonged to France until the late 1700s, the King is numbered differently on this coin; the Seventh Ferdinand to rule Spain was only the Third to rule Navarre, and so is named as FERDIN.III.

There would still be one more portrait of Ferdinand VII to appear on Spanish coinage. Between 1997 and 1999, Spain issued coins showing all the Bourbon monarchs to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Bourbon accession to the Spanish throne. New coin effigies of all these monarchs were commissioned, including this one of Ferdinand VII, on a 1998 silver 2000 Pesetas coin, the same size as the old 8 reales. The bust which had been used in his lifetime on gold coins (above) was also pressed back into use, though, on an 80000 peseta gold ounce showing an 1824 gold coin of Ferdinand VII.

II. Biographical Sketch of Ferdinand VII

Fernando de Borbón, Ferdinand, was born on 16 October 1784, the son of Crown Prince Carlos and Princess María Luísa of Parma, the Italian branch of the Bourbon family. In 1788 King Carlos III died and Ferdinand's father became king as Carlos IV. As a boy and young man Ferdinand grew increasingly resentful of his parents, who were under the thumb of the Queen's lover, Manuel de Godoy. The Spanish people also resented their monarchs' behavior and many openly espoused deposing them and enthroning the young Ferdinand. In 1807 Ferdinand was discovered to have been plotting his parents' overthrow, but they did not punish him.

In 1808 as Napoleon's armies poured into Spain, ostensibly to invade Portugal, an uprising possibly instigated by Ferdinand caused the fall of Prime Minister Godoy and the abdication of the weak and unpopular Carlos. But the young King Ferdinand VII allowed himself to be baited by Napoleon, and was tricked into crossing the French border, whereupon Napoleon detained him at Valençay for six years. Only in May 1814, as Napoleon's empire collapsed, was Ferdinand VII allowed back into Spain.

Ferdinand VII quickly joined with the more radical conservatives who opposed the liberal reforms and Spanish Constitution passed in his absence. He exiled some 12,000 Spaniards, abolished the constitution, and resumed absolute rule. Military uprisings between 1815-1819 were unsuccessful; but in 1820 a large army raised at Cadiz to fight Bolivar's forces chose instead to march on Madrid. Ferdinand was forced to reinstate the Constitution and stripped of most of his power. He conspired secretly with the French King Louis XVIII though, and in 1823 France invaded Spain and restored Ferdinand to absolute power. The resulting repression, known as the Terror of 1824, was so harsh that even the French protested the brutality of the regime.

After marrying his fourth wife, his niece María Cristina, Ferdinand finally produced prospective heirs to the throne, but both were girls and so under Spanish law unable to inherit. His younger brother, the extremely religious Don Carlos, had for years expected to become the next king. But Ferdinand changed the law and sought the support of the exiled liberals so that his daughter Isabel might rule as Queen after his death. On the sweltering afternoon of 29 September 1833, Ferdinand VII died of a stroke in the Royal Palace in Madrid. His daughter, Isabel II, would be challenged for the throne by Carlos, resulting in the First Carlist War, which Carlos lost in 1839.

III. The Spanish Monetary System, 1808-1833

The Spanish monetary system between 1808 and 1833 was substantially unchanged from what it had been in the early 1600s. Many American collectors fail to realize that American coin sizes are directly based on the Spanish system. American quarters, half dollars and silver dollars were designed to be exactly the same size as Spanish two reales, four reales and eight reales coins. At the time of the American Revolution, Spanish money was the most widely circulated in the world.

It was also anything but a decimal system. The lowest value was an old measurement from the middle ages, the maravedi. 34 maravedis made 1 real. 16 reales made 1 Escudo. In practice, by the precious metal standard of the day, one ounce of gold was considered to be worth 128 ounces of silver. The silver dollar, or 8 reales, was also referred to as a peso, or duro. So values expressed in escudos and pesos required some calculations to find the total in reales. Similarly, an 8 Maravedis coin was called a cuarto, or quarter, though in fact it was slightly less than a quarter real. TTo simplify the data:
34 Maravedis=1 Real
16 Reales=1 Escudo.

Things were further complicated in the early 1800s when cash-strapped Spanish governments began issuing devalued reales, known as reales-de-vellon. The idea seems to have been simply to force people to give more reales for the same amount of precious metal. 1 silver real was worth 2½ reales-de-vellon, and an 8 Real coin was equal to a 20 Reales-de-vellon coin. Both types were issued under Ferdinand VII, though the vellon issues were confined almost exclusively to the 1820-23 constitutionalist period.

© Matt Hovious, 2000

	The first coins issued in the name of Ferdinand VII do not bear his portrait at all, but rather that of his father, Carlos IV. This was common practice in the Colonial mints, where it usually took months or years for Madrid to send them coin dies with the portrait of the new king. Coins showing Carlos IV, with the legend FERDIN.VII, were issued in beginning in 1808 by the mints of Guatemala, Colombia, and Santiago Chile, though not in mainland Spain. Semi-monetary coin-sized proclamation medals with portraits of the ex-king were also issued in many places. Only Colombia though used the abbreviation FERDND.VII., as shown by the 1 Real coin at left.
	The type shown here is a 4 reales, issued in Valencia from 1809-1811. As can be seen beginning in 1809 some of the Spanish mints began issuing coins with accurate portraits of Ferdinand VII, although he was by then imprisoned in France. The bust may have been created from existing portraits. Note the lack of laurels on the bust; these would come later. The coins struck by this mint show some of the finest workmanship found on any Spanish coin of the day; note the fine detail in the medal on his chest. Similar, rarer types were struck at Reus, Cataluña.
	This bust, also created in Valencia in 1809, adorned Spain's first coins to bear inscriptions in Spanish rather than Latin. The 1809 issue mentioned "Ferdinand VII King of Spain and the Indies" and carried an anti-French slogan on back, in response to Napoleon's invasion. Ironically the coin type was reactivated in 1823, as shown here, by the constitutionalists fighting Bourbon French troops --- troops summoned by the King, titled here as "Ferdinand VII by the Grace of God and the Constitution."
	Meanwhile the Colonies all rejected Joseph Bonaparte as King and minted coins showing Ferdinand VII. But through 1811, most colonial mints had not received the dies to strike coins showing him. Therefore several mints created Imaginary Busts ranging from the Lima, Peru bust (which was not even close), to the Mexico City bust (slightly better), to this one, the Santiago de Chile "Admiral's" bust, used on 8 Reales of 1808-1811, 2 reales of 1810 and 1811, and 8 Escudos Gold of 1808-11. All of these are rare, with only 26,000 of this one, the 2 reales, having been minted.
	Some of the more unusual bust types found in Spain arose from the prerogative some regions had of keeping their own currency, separate from the national one. This rather chubby bust is found on the 12 Dineros coins, 1811 and 1812 issues of the Baleares Islands, identifying the Monarch on reverse as "King of Spain and The Baleares" --- which in truth is one of the thirty or more titles the King of Spain holds.
	Other mainland Spanish mints resorted to busts that, if not imaginary, reflected the strains of the war in their crudeness. Remember that much of the prewar Spanish minting apparatus was being used by King Joseph Bonaparte in the areas he controlled. This 8 Maravedis coin, minted in Jubia between 1811-1817, is technically well-struck but features a bust that bears only a superficial resemblance to the King, rather like a police sketch.
	During the French occupation of Spain, while Bonaparte ruled in Madrid the resistance government met in Cadiz, passing Spain's first constitution there in 1812. Meanwhile in Madrid, the famine of 1812 began to seriously weaken Joseph Bonaparte's shaky throne. In 1812, coins showing Ferdinand VII were struck in Madrid for the first time, with the bust shown at left. In my opinion, this was probably the most accurate of all the portraits of the King used on coins. Note there are no laurels on the bust, as there would be later. Coins with this Madrid bust were struck valued at 1, 2, 4, and 8 reales. Oddly enough the 1813 2 Real issues featured a cruder reworking of this bust, making the 1812 an even scarcer type.
	The type shown at left is the design which was finally adopted for coinage by nearly every Spanish mint in the world. It was created at the provisional mint in the provisional capital of Cadiz, in 1810. The colonial mints of Bolivia and Guatemala first received the dies in late 1811, but struck backdated coins of 1808 and 1809 with them. This design was eventually used on every value of Spanish coinage, from the copper 1 Maravedi to the 8 Escudo ounce of gold, and coins in this design were struck at every mint except those in Colombia, which apparently never received the dies and struck coins showing Carlos IV till 1820. This design was also reproduced in local forms with minor variations at the small mints of Durango, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas. It was last struck in the Americas by the last Spanish troops in Peru in January 1826, and in Spain almost every year up to the King's death in 1833.
	The Colonial issues were generally identical to the Spanish ones, except for the reverse which identified the King as ruler of the Indies as well as Spain. These 1 Real issues do all seem to show the King's nose proportionally smaller than it appeared on the other coins!
	A few early Gold issues featured a fully uniformed shoulder bust of Ferdinand VII. But by 1814, except in Colombia, the standard bust had been adopted for gold coins too, with one noticeable difference; the bust used on gold issues, such as this Half Escudo from Madrid, ended at the king's neck, rather than showing his shoulders and chest as on the silver coins.
	The new portrait was still subject to crude local renderings, as this 8 Maravedis type shows, struck at Jubia between 1817 and 1821.
	It helps to know the history behind a coin -- for more about the rule of Ferdinand VII, see below. One consequence of the revolt of 1820 appears to have been a brief change in Spanish coinage. Between 1821-1824 the portrait shown here of an older, heavier Ferdinand was used. Once the King seized back absolute power, the various Spanish mints began using the "younger" bust again --- on whose orders, one wonders?
	There would still be a few unusual items and busts to appear before the end of this reign, mostly involving the regional copper coins of Navarre, like this 3 maravedis of a type struck in 1825 and 1826. It features a crude reworking of the bust above. Interestingly, since Navarre belonged to France until the late 1700s, the King is numbered differently on this coin; the Seventh Ferdinand to rule Spain was only the Third to rule Navarre, and so is named as FERDIN.III.
	There would still be one more portrait of Ferdinand VII to appear on Spanish coinage. Between 1997 and 1999, Spain issued coins showing all the Bourbon monarchs to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Bourbon accession to the Spanish throne. New coin effigies of all these monarchs were commissioned, including this one of Ferdinand VII, on a 1998 silver 2000 Pesetas coin, the same size as the old 8 reales. The bust which had been used in his lifetime on gold coins (above) was also pressed back into use, though, on an 80000 peseta gold ounce showing an 1824 gold coin of Ferdinand VII.