4 Escudos Carlos II 1695 Gold Cob: Value Guide

If you inherited or found a heavy, irregular gold coin marked with a cross and shield, and you traced it to 1695 Mexico under Carlos II, you are holding real money. The gold content alone puts a floor of several hundred US dollars under it, and a well-preserved, certified example can bring several thousand at auction.

What you actually have

This is a 4 escudos gold cob (in Spanish, macuquina), struck in colonial Mexico in 1695 during the reign of Carlos II, the last Habsburg king of Spain. "Cob" is the English term for these hand-struck, irregular gold and silver coins the Spanish colonies produced before machine minting. They look crude and off-round because they were cut from a gold bar and struck by hand, not because yours is damaged.

Hard specs, exactly as recorded:

• Denomination: 4 escudos (half an ounce of gold, a high-value trade coin of its day)
• Weight: 13.25 grams
• Fineness: 0.875 gold (21 karat)
• Diameter: 25 mm
• Edge: plain, unmilled
• Year: 1695, single year of this listing
• Ruler: Carlos II (reigned 1665 to 1700)

At 13.25 grams of 0.875 gold, the coin contains roughly 11.6 grams of pure gold, about 0.372 troy ounces. That gives it a melt floor that moves with the gold spot price. At recent gold levels, that is well over 700 USD in metal alone, before any collector premium. This is the key point for anyone who inherited one: a genuine piece is never worth "a few dollars." The gold guarantees a real base value.

What drives the price above melt

Three things separate a 700-dollar melt coin from a several-thousand-dollar collector coin:

1. Condition (grade). Cobs are graded on how much of the design, cross, shield, and legends survived the crude striking and centuries of handling. A coin where you can read the assayer marks and date clearly is worth far more than a worn, corroded blob.
2. Authenticity certification. A coin graded and sealed by NGC or PCGS commands a strong premium over a raw, uncertified one, because the buyer no longer has to trust the seller.
3. Provenance. Many surviving Spanish colonial cobs come from documented shipwrecks. A piece with a known salvage pedigree can carry a meaningful bonus.

Because cobs vary so widely in strike and preservation, there is no single sticker price. An honest range for a genuine 1695 Carlos II 4 escudos runs from roughly the gold value on a worn, damaged example to several thousand US dollars for a sharp, well-centered, certified coin. Exceptional colonial gold cobs from this era have sold in the five figures at major US auctions, so if yours is unusually clear, get it graded before selling.

Value at a glance

Prices track the international gold spot price at the floor. Treat the upper end as auction-dependent, not guaranteed.

How to tell if yours is genuine

Gold cobs are faked, and the fakes almost always give themselves away on the scale. A real 1695 4 escudos weighs 13.25 grams and measures about 25 mm. Counterfeits, many produced overseas, tend to use lower-purity alloy and come out underweight or the wrong size. Steps to take:

• Weigh it on a gram scale accurate to 0.01 g. A reading far off 13.25 g is a red flag.
• Check the color and feel. 21-karat gold has a rich, warm tone and real heft for its size.
• Look at the design. Genuine cobs show hand-struck irregularity, a cross and Habsburg shield, and assayer/mint marks, not a perfectly round, machine-even coin.
• Get it certified for anything you plan to sell above modest money. Submitting your best piece to NGC or PCGS is the definitive insurance against both fakes and lowball offers.

Where to sell it

Because this is a precious-metal coin, only deal with buyers who let you verify the piece first. Options that work for US and international sellers:

• Established auction houses (Heritage, Stack's Bowers) for a certified, high-grade example. This is where premium colonial gold reaches top prices.
• Reputable coin dealers who handle world and Spanish colonial gold. Expect an offer near melt for worn pieces and a real premium for sharp ones.
• Collector communities where you can post clear photos of the front, back, and edge, plus the exact weight, and let knowledgeable buyers bid.

Do not dump a genuine gold cob to the first online buyer. Photograph the obverse, reverse, and edge, confirm the weight, and compare against the ranges above before you accept anything.

The bottom line for an inherited piece

Unlike most old coins that people hope are worth a fortune, a real 1695 Carlos II 4 escudos genuinely has value, because it is gold and because Habsburg colonial gold is scarce and collected. The floor is the metal. The ceiling depends on grade and certification. Verify the weight first, then decide whether it is worth the cost of professional grading.

Have one in a box of inherited coins and unsure if it is the real thing? Post clear photos of both sides and the edge, plus the exact weight, in the Pesoteca forum and let collectors help you place it before you sell.

Cob four escudos in the name of Carlos II, struck in 1695 at the Mexico City Mint under the viceregal administration of Gaspar de la Cerda, Count of Galve, who still governed New Spain that year. The assayer's mark is L, the same one that appears on the two-escudo listing from the same period, a sign of continuity in the workshop. The four escudos is half an ounce and exactly half of the eight-escudo cob. It was hammer-struck on planchets cut with shears from the cast gold bar. The theoretical weight is close to 13.5 grams with a fineness near 0.916, though wear and the method itself mean that surviving pieces show considerable variation. Krause does not assign a specific running number to the type; it is documented within the Carlos II Mo cob family. This precise year, 1695, is historically dense: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz died on April 17 and several floods struck Mexico City. The piece lived through that viceregal setting before circulating in the commercial network of the Atlantic.