Uniface obverse. A cliche or die trial of the sort sent to New World mints along with punches and portrait hubs for the coinage of the new monarch Carlos IV. Smooth pewter gray on the obverse, granular dark gray on the reverse, where the impression is seen in incuse relief, somewhat like a medieval bracteate. An old scratch traces along the profile, centering divot (from the pin of a compass or the like) seen at dead central obverse. No 1789-dated coins of Carlos IV were struck in the New World mints, but pieces like this were coined in Madrid for delivery to New World mintmasters to show how the new coinage should look. Very scarce. From the Eldorado Collection of Colombian and Ecuadorian Coins.
