My custom set has more than 500 views!

Thanks to all of you that have viewed my custom set "Amazing 8s -- Charles III Portrait 8 Reales 1772-1791".

The special thing about a custom set is that it's uniquely your own. For my set I selected 20 coins from my collection of 8 reales, one for each year of issue that featured the bust of Charles III (some posthumously) and made sure to choose examples from a variety of mints.

I did some research and tried to include a few interesting facts about this monarch's reign among my comments. History shows that Charles III was the last great King of Spain -- his economic policies fostered an expansion of trade that encouraged the Spanish colonies to vastly increase the minting of these coins. His successor, Charles IV, neglected the administration of the Empire and was eventually forced to abdicate his throne, first to his son Ferdinand VII and then again to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Curating this set was a fun learning experience. Please take a look if you haven't seen it yet.

http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=3785

I'll leave you with a composite photograph of the first coin in my set and its comment text.

"First year of the portrait design on Spanish silver coins. This example is from the Mexico City mint. Both the mint mark and assayer initials are inverted and this coin is the rare variety where the initials have been transposed from "FM" to "MF" From the April/May 2012 Heritage auction, Chicago, lot #25106. KM-106.1."

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