Dies for 1857 Ecuador 2 real coins.

[Hussulo]

The bag I bought them in:

[Hussulo]

[Hussulo]

Although quite small they are heavy.

Too heavy for my digital scales so I had to weigh them on my kitchen scales.

The obverse die weighs: approx 180 grams

The obverse die weighs: approx 190 grams

Most likely for counterfeit coins, but hopefully for contemporary counterfeit coins.

From what I can gather:

The designs for these coins and the 4 and 8 Reales vary quite a bit even for the same date.

This was because, they used several dies to mint same date of coin. You can see a big difference in 4 Reales dated 1844, 1857 among others. There are coins that have inverted V instead of A, or letter Q in replace O, etc.

In Ecuadorian numismatic 19th century the counterfeit coins were very common.

At that time because there was so many counterfeit coins the government legalized counterfeit coins (These coins are known as Floreana), with the purpose of preventing the collapse of the industry of that era.

The coin of 2 Reales coins dated 1857 are classed as rare now. But at the time they were minted in a large number, more that the some of the coins minted from 1847 to 1852, but many were sent to Peru to be melted. (on January 7 1858, , Peruvian forces moved in and occupied city).

A lot of things including coin dies were "lost" when "La casa de Moneda de Quito" was destroyed by an earthquake on march 22 of 1859 according to a book by Melvin Hoyos.

[Red Riley]

You sure come up with some ineresting stuff. It might be worth 'minting' the odd coin in plasticine - could give you a better idea of whether the dies are genuine or for the production of forgeries.