Colonial Latin American Coins

Spanish colonists carried to the New World with them the Castilian currency system. The double base of the system consisted of the gold excelente, replaced by the escudo, and the silver real. The coins of Spanish America were specifically: in gold, the escudo, two-escudos, four-escudos, eight-escudos, or onza, and the half-escudo, or escudito; in silver, the real, the half-real and the quarter-real, or cuartillo, and the two-reales, four-reales, and eight-reales, or peso fuerte.