During the years of the Peninsular War, the emergency mint of Guadalajara in Mexico produced a number of Onzas featuring four exceedingly rare and exclusive portrait types. The mint received authorization to strike coinage in May 1811, with José Mariano Zavala serving as director and Manuel Rivera as assayer. It was the only one of the provisional mints to strike gold coinage, albeit in very limited quantities.

The mint was established on the ground floor of the city’s Government Palace and began operations in 1812. It was first closed in the spring of 1815, although it later reopened in 1818 and again in 1822. Relations with the Mexico City mint were consistently strained, as the latter harshly criticized its officials, at one point declaring that its engravers and assayers were “incapable of producing any replicas of the dies and punches used at the capital mint.”

In 1813, Guadalajara produced two issues of Onzas bearing different, though somewhat similar, portraits, probably inspired by the proclamation medals executed by Francisco Gordillo for the Colegio Tridentino of Guadalajara in 1809. In both portraits, the king is depicted wearing a mantle and a high-collared military coat with visible embroidery, together with the sash of the Order of Charles III and the Golden Fleece suspended from his neck. In this particular type, he is shown with a distinctive wavy hairstyle unique among representations of the monarch.

The reverse displays the traditional Greater Arms of the Spanish Monarchy, though with a notable peculiarity: the central Bourbon-Anjou escutcheon bears the fleurs-de-lis in reverse order to the official arrangement. Instead of the standard 2-1 configuration, they appear as 1-2. Only around 20 specimens of this type are known today.