During the Spanish conquest of Chile and in the earliest commercial transactions carried out in what is now Chile, coins brought from Spain were used, as well as barter. Among the first coins minted in the Americas to circulate in Chile were the macuquinas or macucas, silver pieces that imitated the Spanish currency, the real. These coins were crude and rudimentary: they were made by hammering the metal by hand, which left them with irregular edges, and sometimes parts of the inscription or design were difficult to read. Minted mainly in Peru, Upper Peru and Mexico, they circulated widely in Chile because of the scarcity of coinage.

As the colonial system developed, the Spanish Crown established several mints in the Americas, including those of Mexico, Lima and Potosí. In these mints, coins were struck in accordance with Spanish monetary legislation, with regulated weight and shape and, in most cases, the effigy of the reigning monarch. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the monetary system was organised around the silver real, in denominations of ¼, ½, 1, 2, 4 and 8 reales, together with gold escudos. In Chile, although no local coinage had yet been established, reales from different Spanish territories in the Americas circulated as current legal tender.

In 1743, King Philip V of Spain ordered the creation of the Santiago Mint by royal decree. From that point on, Chilean territory was able to strike its own coins, both silver reales and gold escudos, especially during the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. This brought a more stable money supply and gave the territory greater control over monetary circulation. Today, colonial coins minted in Santiago are relatively scarce when compared with those struck in Peru or Potosí, as production in Chile was considerably lower.