Gold 4-excelentes and silver 4-reales

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

The lure of gold drew many explorers into the Americas, and created the myth of Eldorado, the city of gold. The conquistadors and other early European settlers looted the gold treasures of the native populations and exported much of it to Europe.

This first New World treasure was reflected in the coinage of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus's patrons, whose gold coins became plentiful as a result. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, the bulk of New World treasure reaching Europe was gold. In the first decade, it was about 4,000 kilos, rising to 15,000 in the 1530s (nearly 12,000 of which was loot from Inca Peru, including the emperor Atahualpa's famous treasure) and reaching a peak of 42,000 kilos in the 1550s. Read on...