Philip V was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 until his abdication in favour of his son Louis on 14 January 1724, and again from his son's death on 6 September 1724 until his own death on 9 July 1746. He held a prominent position in the French royal family as the grandson of King Louis XIV. His great-uncle, King Charles II of Spain, named him his heir in his will.
Philip's accession to the Spanish throne sparked the War of the Spanish Succession, a 13-year conflict that ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, which forbade any future unification of the French and Spanish thrones. Philip was the first member of the House of Bourbon to rule as king of Spain. The combined duration of his two reigns, 45 years and 21 days, constitutes the longest in modern Spanish history.
The real was a unit of currency in Spain and its colonies for several centuries. When more silver deposits were discovered in the colonial territories, an urgent need arose to export it to Spain as quickly as possible. To this end, beginning during the reign of Philip II, mints began producing irregular coins known as macuquinas (cobs).
A silver bar was simply cut into fragments of the appropriate weight. The purpose of these crude but precisely weighed pieces was to facilitate their transport to Spain. There, the macuquinas were melted down to make jewelry, coins, ingots, and other silver objects. Each coin has a unique shape and is a unique piece of history.
