Following the proclamation of independence in Lima, and while the war was still being fought against the royalists, the first coins of the new Peruvian state were produced by the capital's mint, in 1822, when José de San Martín was governing as the country’s Protector. The general designed the first coat of arms of an independent Peru, which replaced the Spanish coat-of-arms on the coins.
The new coat-of-arms had as its central motif the landscape seen when arriving in Peru from the sea; behind the surface of a calm sea, a chain of mountains rose, from behind which the radiant sun emerged.