Authentic Spanish Cob - 1 Reales - Leather bracelet with sterling silver bezel
$950
Denomination: 1 Reales
Date: 1723
Mint: Potosi
Weight: 3.27 gm
Reign: Philip V
Assayer: Not Visible
Description: Obverse: Bold Jerusalem cross with deeply struck lions and castles in all four quadrants visible. Reverse: Bold strike on pillar and wave design. Denomination "1" visible. Date of 1723 visible.
History: Felipe V (Philip) was King of Spain from November 1700 to January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death; to his death. Philip was the first member of the House of Bourbon to rule as king of Spain. The sum of his two reigns, 45 years and 21 days, is the longest in modern Spanish history. In 1700 the King Charles II of Spain died childless. His will named the 16-year-old Philip, grandson of Charles' half-sister Maria Theresa of Spain, the first wife of Louis XIV, as his successor. Upon any possible refusal, the crown of Spain would be offered next to Philip's younger brother, the Duke of Berry, then to the Archduke Charles of Austria, later Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Philip had the better genealogical claim to the Spanish throne, because his Spanish grandmother and great-grandmother were older than the ancestors of the Archduke Charles of Austria. However, the Austrian branch claimed that Philip's grandmother had renounced the Spanish throne for herself and her descendants as part of her marriage contract. This was countered by the French branch's claim that it was on the basis of a dowry that had never been paid.
Philip helped his Bourbon relatives to make territorial gains in the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession by re-conquering Naples and Sicily from Austria and Oran from the Ottomans. Finally, at the end of his reign Spanish forces also successfully defended their American territories from a large British invasion during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
