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1815, Peru/Hejaz, Ferdinand VII. Silver 8 Reales Coin w. "al-Hejaz" Countermark!

Mint Year: 1815  Mint Place: Lima (Peru) Denomination: 8 Reales  Condition: Scratch at 7 o'clock (obverse), otherwise a VF+ coin with a XF-AU countermark, which suggests that the coin did not circulated after the countermarking! Reference: KM-117.1 (for the coin) / Bruce-X#17 var. (the authenticity of this kind of countermarks is still being disputed, their dating difficult, this specimen is a rather new striking, possibly made for collectors and not for circulation!) Weight: 26.91gm Diameter: 38mm Material: Silver

Obverse: Laureate, armored and togate profile bust of Ferdinand VII right. Latin Legend: FERDIN . VII . DEI . GRATIA . 1815 Translation: "Ferdinand VII by the Grace of God, 1815"

Reverse: Crowned Spanish* arms between the Pillars of Hercules adorned with PLVS VLTRA motto. Legend: .HISPAN[IARUM].ET IND[IARUM].REX.LIMAE[Lima in Monogram].8R [EALES] J.P.[assayer] Translation: "King of the Spains and the Indies, Lima[Mint], 8 Reales"

In the time before 1916 Turkish coins circulated in this region and throughout the Ottoman Empire. When the Turks were thrown out Husein ibn Ali, soon to be King of Hejaz in Mecca, ordered the existing coins to be counterstamped "al-Hijaz" over the tughra of the Sultan, thus effacing the symbol of centuries of Ottoman domination.

Al-Hejaz, also Hijaz (Arabic: الحجاز‎ al-Ḥiǧāz, literally "the barrier"), is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. It is bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the north by Jordan, on the east by Najd, and on the south by Asir. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. As the site of Islam's holy places, the Hejaz has significance in the Arab and Islamic historical and political landscape. Historically, Hejaz has always seen itself as separate from the rest of Saudi Arabia. Hejaz is the most populated region in Saudi Arabia; 35% of all Saudis live in Hejaz. Hejazi Arabic is the most spoken accent in the region. Saudi Hejazis are of ethnically diverse origins. Hejaz is the most cosmopolitan region in the Arabian Peninsula. People of Hejaz have the most strongly articulated identity of any   regional grouping in Saudi Arabia. Their place of origin alienates them   from the Saudi state, which invokes different narratives of the history   of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus, Hejazis experienced tensions with people   of Najd.

Ferdinand VII (October 14, 1784 - September 29, 1833) was King of Spain from 1813 to 1833.

The eldest son of Charles IV, king of Spain, and of his wife Maria Louisa of Parma, he was born in the vast palace of El Escorial near Madrid.

When his father's abdication was extorted by a popular riot at Aranjuez in March 1808, he ascended the throne but turned again to Napoleon, in the hope that the emperor would support him. He was in his turn forced to make an abdication and imprisoned in France for almost seven years at the Chateau of Valençay in the town of Valençay.

In March 1814 the Allies returned him to Madrid. The Spanish people, blaming the liberal, enlightened policies of the Francophiles (afrancesados) for incurring the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War, at first welcomed Fernando. Ferdinand soon found that while Spain was fighting for independence in his name and while in his name juntas had governed in Spanish America, a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. Spain was no longer an absolute monarchy under the liberal Constitution of 1812. Ferdinand, in being restored to the throne, guaranteed the liberals that he would govern on the basis of the existing constitution, but, encouraged by conservatives backed by the Church hierarchy, he rejected the constitution within weeks (May 4) and arrested the liberal leaders (May 10), justifying his actions as rejecting a constitution made by the Cortes in his absence and without his consent. Thus he had come back to assert the Bourbon doctrine that the sovereign authority resided in his person only.

After he succeeded to the throne in 1788 his one serious occupation was hunting. Affairs were left to be directed by his wife and her lover Manuel de Godoy. Although Godoy essentially took over his wife and his office, the king was favourable towards him for all his life. When terrified by the French Revolution he turned to the Inquisition to help him against the party which would have carried the reforming policy of Charles III much further. But he never took more than a passive part in the direction of his own government. He simply obeyed the impulse given him by the queen and Godoy. In 1803, after smallpox had affected his daughter María Luísa, the king commissioned his doctor Francisco Javier de Balmis to bring the vaccine to the Spanish colonies on state expenses.

He had a profound belief in his divine right and the sanctity of his person. He thought it very important to seem a very powerful monarch, although his kingdom was treated as a mere dependency by France and his throne was dominated by the queen and her lover. Spain allied with France and supported the Continental Blockade, but withdrew after the Battle of Trafalgar. When Napoleon won from Prussia in 1807, Godoy returned to the French side, but France no longer considered Spain a worthy ally. But even the alliance with France, as it was, made Godoy's rule unpopular and fueled the partido fernandista, the supporters of Ferdinand, who favored a close relationship with Great Britain.

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