Scudo or Escudo? - Scudi or Escudi?
The Spanish Escudo gold coinage issued from 1771 to 1814, or thereabouts, is marked with its value as 1S, 2S, 4S, and 8S; the "S" being an abbreviation of scudo or its plural scudi. We do not know why the letter "E" was not used. Perhaps it's for the same reason that the coin grade Extremely Fine is abbreviated in American to XF? We hesitate to add whether this is any reflection on US education standards, or just because Americans don't speak English. If anybody out there knows the answer to our Spanish question, we would be delighted if you could let us know, Thanks. - See Below.
The 2 escudo (dos escudi / scudi) coin is also known as a "Doubloon", (Doblon in Spanish), because of its face value of 2 scudi.

Description
Obverse
Large bust of King Carlos IIII to the right, with the legend:-
CAROL IIII D.G. HISP ET IND R.
1807

Reverse
A crowned shield, surrounded by what appears to be an ornate gold chain with a fleece suspended from it, with "2" and "S" on either side of the shield but inside the chain; and the legend:-IN UTROQ FELIX AUSPICE DEO
(Crowned) M A.I.

Specifications

Key to Table
Denomination = Face Value
Diameter = Diameter in millimetres
Weight = Gross weight in grams.
Gold Content = Gold content in Troy Ounces.

Prices & Availability
The prices quoted in the US $ column may be out of date due to currency fluctuations.

Spanish Inquisition
When we created this page, we asked why the Spanish Mint chose to engrave the coins 2S rather than 2E?
We are grateful to Snr. Jesus V Toled (we owe him a pint!) who provided us with the following answer:

In Spanish it's ESCUDO. In plural ESCUDOS.
Coin inscriptions were written in Latin (not to be confused with italian). The letter E was not used, because in Latin it's written SCUDO. Latin was used (and sometimes still is) in religious ceremonies, documents, buildings, etc.

Two Answers for the Price of One!
Jesus has answered two questions, even though we only asked one.We are of course aware that many coin legends and inscriptions are in Latin rather than their own native language, so we should have realised that 2S stands for 2 Scudi.
We should also have realised that in Spanish, the plural of Escudo is not Escudi but Escudos.

Clever, These Spanish!
We English tend to be rather lazy with our foreign languages, largely because English is so widely spoken ( In Lancashire it is broadly spoken).Having been taught French and Latin at school, my Italian and Spanish tend to cross-fertilise each other, with some added hybridisation from Latin.
This reminds me of an incident while travelling a few years ago:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Generalife
My wife and I were driving from Italy, though France, to Spain, before the introduction of the Euro.
We only had a very limited amount of money in French Francs, so after the Mortola Menton border, we kept motoring for 5 hours, until we crossed into Spain near Figueras.
We stopped at the first bar, and while my wife found a pleasant table, I went to the bar to order two coffees, and a selection of tapas.
Rejoining my wife at the table, I proudly announced that I had managed to order all the stuff in Spanish. When the waiter asked me if I wanted the snacks "caldo?", I had promptly answered, "si, per favore". After she said "well done", I got to thinking more about the exchange, and then it dawned on me that "caldo" is the Italian word for hot, the Spanish being "caliente", and then logically progressed to wondering why the waiter was speaking to me in Italian.
"Doh!", as Homer Simpson might have said, I had ordered in Italian, and the multilingual waiter had simply responded in my language of choice. I am still wondering to this day whether he knew I was English, and simply humouring me, and perhaps amusing himself, or whether my Italian pronunciation and accent were sufficiently good to fool him.

Postage & Packing
UK Registered Post (Special Delivery) £9 per order
EU Insured Post £10 per order
USA Airmail $10 per order
USA Insured Shipping $20 per order
Rest of World (where available) £10 International Registered (fully insured)

Other Spanish Coins
For Spanish coins in silver or base metal, or Spanish coin sets other than gold, please look at the Spanish Coins page of our original website.