This section of Mexican Coin Magic is devoted to helping the serious collector or dealer. We will attempt to help you understand which Mexican Republican gold and silver coins are truly rare, what grades they can be expected to be found, how often each coin has shown up on the market, both public and private since the late 1800s and provide photo reproductions of each coin. This is an ongoing project that was the first serious and only continuous population survey of the Mexican Republican Gold Coins, which started four months after the Christie’s-Norweb Republican Gold Sale in November 1985. I began this population survey after I became aware of the lack of meaningful published information about this period’s gold coins.
This Norweb Sale was the first Great Mexican coin sale I attended in person, and being a neophyte in Mexican Numismatics it was an eye opening experience for me. At the time my Mexican collecting interests centered on the Republican coins from only two mints; Guanajuato, my first love and passion and Durango. My serious collecting began with these two mints 8 Reales and much to my surprise I was able to secure most, except for the extreme rarities, of these two mint’s coins easily. At that time I was collecting only one coin for each DAM (Date/Assayer/Mintmark) for the 8 Reales series. The varieties were interesting, but of no great importance to me yet. Having purchased a couple of Guanajuato and Durango 8 Escudos, on my very first foray into Mexican Numismatics, several years earlier, they still hadn’t become a passion yet ... at least until I saw the Norweb catalog.
I was smitten by the large number of 8 Escudos Mrs. Norweb had been able to amass (especially from Guanajuato and Culiacan) and was convinced I was going to purchase as many as possible from her collection for the base of my Guanajuato collection. I studied the catalog for weeks before the sale, with the intention of looking at the coins in the allotted public viewing time before the sale. The only books in my library prior to this sale about Mexican gold coins were the Buttery & Hubbard handbooks, a few old catalogs and a recent purchase of the Calico brothers’ book, The Onza Main Book, that was my Bible of gold coins. I was not prepared for the number of others visiting the pre-auction viewing room; this was my first inkling that this auction might be something very special!
After hours of waiting, to inspect most of the coins I wanted to bid on, I finally made my way to the auction room- it was already packed. I will not go into the story about my experiences over the next two days, as I cover this experience very well later in an article on Mexican Coin Magic, but I will tell you I was more than slightly overwhelmed by that two-day’s events.
The price estimates in the Christie’s Norweb catalog and my trustee Buttrey & Hubbard Handbook were worthless! If some collector or dealer wanted the coins in this sale these price and value estimates weren't worth the paper they were printed on. Many of the coins far exceeded the high estimates, sometime by multiplies, while a few were purchased at much lower prices. I learned a very valuable lesson during this sale; there was very little quality information written about the coins of the Mexican Republic Period!
This first experience caused me to start keeping sales records of all Republican gold 8 Escudos in early 1986 and continues today. Somewhere along the way I also started keeping the data handy to expand these computer files to include some of the more rare 8 Reales and other Mexican Republic gold coins. It was a good idea, for later this information would become the basis for several books and my venture into collecting the varieties of both 8 Reales and 8 Escudos. Here, for you are the results of all these years of work:
You will find an order form [Gold Recap Order Form] for ordering the individual recap reports on our other website Mexican FoxLair. All orders must be accompanied with the completed form and either a check or money order made out to FoxLair Partners, Ltd. and can only be ordered by mail.
Second Line: Individual Coin Variety Data:
Third Lines: Individual Coin Data:
Was the coin photographed in this sale?
Month and year sale took place
Lot Number
Cataloger’s Grade
Who’s Sale was it? And was it a special sale or collection
Cataloger’s description
Type of Sale: Live Auction, Mail Bid, Private Treaty or Place of Ad
High Sales estimate
Actual Sales Price (where I have prices realized) and if it didn’t sell or was withdrawn
Now for an explanation of each data field:
First Line: General Coin Year Data: Here is the beginning data needed to interpolate the report, it is almost self-explanatory, I have made this line as simple as possible. The first data field is the number we have assigned to this DAM (Date/Assayer/Mintmark) coin. The second data is the number of coins minted, but most of these fields are blank for the Escudo coinage. Third is the date of the coins being discussed. Next is the Mintmark and Assayer, not taking into effect any OverDates or OverAssayers. Now is the classification “Unknown” which is generally a catch all classification-- meaning there was insufficient data, unclear photos or no photos to determine what variety the following coins were, therefore it is impossible to fully attribute these coins. Sometimes you will find special notes indicating a coin is listed, but is yet unconfirmed, and other important data. All of this is presented to give you a base line for the individual coin data that follows. Sometimes, though not very often, there will not be any coins under this header classification.
The second header classification starts the information about the indicated varieties for this year, but beware many times I have to use what the cataloger has said about the individual coin as the truth. We start with the individual variety number, then the date, next the mintmark and assayer. Following this we give you the individual coin’s variety information as to the OverDates, OverAssayers, and style, or die changes. The individual coins sales following are in ascending (oldest sales date first) order as to their appearance on the market.
Special Note: When you see an * asterisk or two, I’m giving you a message that alerts you to something important. For instance the first data column for the individual coins denotes the photos … if there is a “No”, this means there were no pictures of the individual coin. If there is an * before *Yes only, it means there is a picture of the front of the coin (the side with the date, assayer and mintmark). If there is a Yes* this means there is a picture of the Eagle side, and if there are two asterisks *Yes*, then there was photos of both sides. Sometimes you will find an * asterisk or two in the description areas too, this means I’m noting something special, this could be added information or something I have noted in the photo and want to draw your attention to it. The description area will include the notes from the cataloger, but it will also include my notes that will generally be surrounded by * on either side. The balance of the data is self-explanatory … I hope.
High-definition coin photo reproductions of many varieties
Average Individual Coin Availability by Grade
Production Figures-- if available
True Rarity Projections: indicating Overall Rarity and Condition Rarity
An individual FoxLair number for every known variety
See a sample [Sample Reference Collection] of a Reference Collections. You will find an order form [FoxLair- Reference Collection Order Form] for ordering the individual Reference Collections on our other website Mexican FoxLair. All orders must be accompanied with the completed form and either a check or money order made out to FoxLair Partners, Ltd. and can only be ordered by mail. Sorry, no CODs or credit card orders are accepted for our products; we are trying to keep our life simple.
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