Macuquina

Macuquinas are manually minted coins issued in Spanish America from the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century. Due to the absence of minting machinery in South America, the coins were of irregular shape and roughly minted with hammers.

Etymology

The name "macuquina" is known in Spain and Spanish America as the type of coin roughly minted manually with hammer blows, a method widely used from the 16th century to the mid-18th century. There are various opinions about the origin of the word: while some maintain that it comes from the Arabic word "machuch" ('approved' or 'sanctioned'), others claim that it comes from the Quechua expression Makkaikuna - or macay pina -, which would make reference to its manufacture with hammer blows.

Origin

The minting of coins manually and with hammer blows has been used by humanity since time immemorial. From the second millennium BC to the 16th century AD this was the most used system in the world to make coins. This does not directly explain why coins of this type existed in the Americas so late in time, given that both the Mexicans and the Incas already worked gold and silver in a fairly traditional and correct manner.

Coinage in several places in Europe was already carried out using the "flywheel press", a large and complex device invented in Italy in the 16th century where metal discs were engraved and cut on both sides using a press. However, such machines, complex for their time and tiring to transport, were not available in the Americas until the beginning of the 18th century and therefore, the first centuries of Spanish colonization were supported by the macuquina currency. The absence of modern machinery to mint money, manufactured outside of Spain, and the needs of commerce in said territories caused the appearance of the macuquinas, also known as "cobs".