The paper will examine the efforts of members of the Galician nobility to obtain aristocratic titles that did not result in the issuance of the corresponding patents of nobility and, consequently, in the admission of the applicants to the higher nobility (Magnatenstand, Herrenstand). It will explore the legal procedures governing the granting of titles in the Habsburg Monarchy, revealing the actual conditions under which such distinctions were conferred and challenging the widespread belief, both in historiography and in public perception, that noble titles could simply be “bought” or were freely bestowed upon anyone who sought them.