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Colombia-Numismatics · Independence

1/4 real coin, 1820

1/4 real · Santa Marta · 1820

A copper siege cuartillo: a crown over 1/4 and 1820; on the other side, a cross dividing the letters S and M of Santa Marta.

Catalog facts

Reference
KM# B4 · Restrepo 104 · Hernández 11 · Numista N#18073
Year
1820
Metal
Copper
Mint
Santa Marta (royalist siege mint)
Condition
Circulated, unslabbed (private collection)

Obverse

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Obverse as Numista assigns it: a cross dividing S and M — Santa Marta — with the castle and artillery in the lower quarters.

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Obverse as Numista assigns it: a cross dividing S and M — Santa Marta — with the castle and artillery in the lower quarters.
Obverse as Numista assigns it: a cross dividing S and M — Santa Marta — with the castle and artillery in the lower quarters.

Reverse

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Reverse as Numista assigns it: a crown over 1/4, castle at left, sword and shot at right, date 1820.

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Reverse as Numista assigns it: a crown over 1/4, castle at left, sword and shot at right, date 1820.
Reverse as Numista assigns it: a crown over 1/4, castle at left, sword and shot at right, date 1820.

The piece

In 1820 Santa Marta was still in royalist hands. This emergency mint struck a copper quarter-real — not the silver cuartillo of Santa Fe or Popayán — to pay the square and the troop while the siege lasted. Hernández and denomination indexes group patriot and royalist cuartillos from 1813 to 1822; this record is the 1820 copper siege type, not a census of those years. Numista and Restrepo describe it thus: on one side, a crown, the fraction 1/4, a castle at left, a sword and a pyramid of shot at right, and the date 1820; on the other, a cross that divides S, M, a castle, and the sword with shot. The letters S M are Santa Marta. CoinVarieties notes that the royalist faction was defeated in 1821 and that circulation must have been brief; surviving pieces often show little wear and, at the same time, a weak strike or an irregular planchet. This collection piece, unslabbed, shows that crude work and a copper patina. It is not the silver cornucopia 1/4 of 1826–1836 (KM 85), nor the colonial lions-and-castles cuartillo of 1796–1819 (KM 63 and 67).

Scarcity

Numista gives a rarity index of 54 and a type weight of 2.15 g on 21 mm. It does not publish a mintage. CoinVarieties notes that the type is scarce and that survivors are graded more for planchet and strike than for wear. This record does not invent a slab census for this specimen.

Sources

← Colombia-Numismatics