The Great Mystical Mexican Numismatic Creature!
I’m going to start this article by saying up front, “Today’s pricing and rarity guides for Mexican Republican gold coinage are an unadulterated hoax”!
Now that I’ve said the unthinkable, it is up to me to prove my theory to my readers and then to help you find a way to determine the true rarity and thus the value of Mexican Republic gold coins in today’s market. I’m sure to make even more enemies in the Mexican coin community with this article, but my goal is to try to expose some of the myths that have been perpetrated by far too many people and that have been endured by the Mexican coin collecting community for far too long a time!
It is hard to write something new about any subject, but it is especially hard to try to debunk a commonly accepted icon. It is harder still when the icon you are attacking is a numismatic icon! Especially one that has attained an almost spiritual and cult-like following in recent years by the majority of Mexican coin collectors, dealers and auction houses who support it. For a task of this magnitude one must have very thick skin and almost no feelings.
I will expressly be addressing the gold coins of the Republican era in this article, but the same myths or outright untruths are currently part and parcel to most phases of Mexican Numismatics.
First, I would like to ask you, the collectors of Mexican coins, how many of you have purchased a really great coin from any dealer or auction house at anywhere near the price listed in any one of the current price guides?
Think about this question for several minutes before you answer. Yes, I’m sure you have purchased a few common coins in some series at what you thought was a low or good price, but what about those really rare or nice high-grade coins. I’m sure you have been able to eke out a few bargain basement purchases, but what about the majority of the finest coins in your collection? Did you pay “book price” or less or were they much higher than that price listed in today’s price guides?
Caught you, didn’t I? In fact I bet you have paid multiples of those listed in the Mexican Coin Price & Rarity Guidebooks for those really nice coins? At least I know I have.
Have you ever asked yourself or really checked these guides closely to see if they are even in the ballpark, let alone correct? I’ll bet you haven’t, have you? Why don’t we take some of your valuable time toady to just check a few?
Why the Current Mexican Coin Price & Rarity Guidebooks are Incorrect
The first major problem is the shear number of individual coins involved in the process that constitute the 10 different Mexican Republic gold denominations in the series, let alone all the silver and copper coins. Below, in Table #1, are listed the number of reported DAMs in each series. Do you know what I mean when I refer to a DAM? A DAM is an acronym that other Mexican coin collectors and I use to identify each individual coin by Date, Assayer, and Mintmark. Very simple isn’t it?
Table 1- The Mexican Republic Gold Coins by the Number of Reported DAMs by Series:
8 Escudos 278 12 1823 1873
4 Escudos 65 9 1825 1869
2 Escudos 75 9 1825 1870
1 Escudos 97 7 1825 1870
½ Escudos 124 7 1825 1870
Late Mexican Republic Gold:
20 Pesos 156 9 1870 1905
10 Pesos 158 6 1870 1905
5 Pesos 72 8 1870 1905
2½ Pesos 42 7 1870 1893
1 Pesos 90 7 1870 1905
Total DAMs 1,157
Of course these figures represent only the published DAMs, and doesn’t include the varieties within each DAM that can sometimes number as high as four or five for each DAM in the gold coins or as high as twenty or more for the 8 Reales. Another thing to remember is that there has been at least one new Republican gold DAM discovered every two to three years during the last ten to fifteen years and many new varieties yearly. Notice I also stated “reported” DAMs because some of these DAMs have not yet been verified by me at this time.
If a collector wanted to assemble a complete DAM Type Collection of Mexican Republic gold he or she would have to purchase approximately 1,157 coins. If on the other hand a U.S. collector wanted to do the same five series of U.S. gold denominations they would have to buy 944 coins, see Table 2.
Table 2- The U.S. Gold Coins by the Number of Reported DAMs by Series:
20 Dollar 200 4 1849 1933
5 Dollar 269 7 1796 1929
2½ Dollar 183 6 1796 1929
1 Dollar 76 6 1849 1889
Total DAMs 944
The people who currently supply you the Mexican Coin Price & Rarity Guidebooks also have to keep track of the many varieties in at least four different grades that vary by series. So lets double the 1,157 number (for a minimum number of varieties) and then multiply it times 4 (for the grades) to find the approximate minimum total number of prices and sales that have to be tracked to complete their listings. Let’s assume this total number ranges somewhere from 9,000 to 9,500 different prices that must be entered into a computer each year that there are sales of these gold coins.
But wait a minute this Mexican Coin Price & Rarity Guidebook is no longer a book of only Mexican coins or Mexican gold coins, no it now covers all the known coinage of the world.
Now the number of coins goes into hundreds of thousands or even more, for publishers claim to have over 24,000 photos in one, of two volumes that dates from 1801-1900. So now it takes at least two volumes to check all the Mexican Republic gold series. Wow, are you beginning to see the magnitude of the problem yet? The sheer numbers are overwhelming!
Not no, but hell no! Believe me, You cannot bank (pun intended) on their listed market values, not by a long shot!
There is the key phrase they use… market values. What do they mean by this term? I don’t know, do you? It sure isn’t the average price paid for an individual Mexican Republic Gold DAM over a certain period of time in a particular grade, this I can guarantee you.
So what good are these guidebooks with their listings of market values, if you don’t know what they are or how they come into being? And even worse most people use them as price guides, not market values! Let me explain.
Mexican Republic Gold Price Trends from Different Publications over the Years
Let’s take a few minutes to look at some of the different prices or market values listed in different Mexican coin catalogs over the years, to see if we can make any sense out of them? We will pick a few relatively common, some hard-to-find coins, and some really rare coins for this comparison.
We will use seven different sources, remembering that all of them will not have all the DAMs in all the series listed because of new discoveries and the coins the publishers selected to cover:
(1) Hanks The Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Republican Coins, 1976
(2) Buttrey & Hubbard’s 3rd issue of A Guide Book of Mexican Coins;1977
(3) Bruce’s Standard Catalog of Mexican Coins, 1981
(4) Grove’s Coins of Mexico, 1981
(5) Calicos The Onza Main Book, 1986
(6) Buttrey & Hubbard’s 6th issue of A Guide Book of Mexican Coins; 1992
(7) Krause & Mishler’s 2nd Standard Catalog of World Coins 1801-1900, 1999
Table 3- Comparison of Values of Individual Escudo DAMs by Different Sources
Source and Market Value FoxLair Data Base
DAM 1976 1977 1981 1981 1986 1992 1999 Total Average
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) Sales Price
½ Escudos:
1848 C/CE 65 110 150 240 ___ 75 150 30 $80.95
1838 Do/RM 70 145 165 145 ___ 100 175 3 $315.00
1825 Ga/FS 105 110 165 155 ___ 100 175 9 $246.34
1848 GC/MP NL 165 150 140 ___ 100 200 30 $203.17
1835 Mo/ML 55 NL 150 140 ___ 80 150 7 $403.75
1862 Zs/VL 55 125 125 140 ___ 75 125 43 $152.27
1 Escudos:
1857 C/CE 112.50 110 175 220 ___ 125 225 14 $143.25
1838 Do/RM 145 145 185 210 ___ 150 200 1 $319.00
1860 Ga/JG 125 110 180 185 ___ 125 200 37 $218.78
1848 GC/MP 200 165 225 270 ___ 175 250 13 $318.09
1849 Go/PF 112.50 100 150 260 ___ 125 200 10 $167.00
1845 Mo/MF 110 85 150 200 ___ 100 150 8 $74.67
1862 Zs/VL 140 125 175 250 ___ 150 200 9 $232.50
1848 C/CE 235 175 275 400 ___ 225 325 25 $340.29
1837 Do/RM NL NL NL NL ___ UP UP 1 $10,000.00
1835 Ga/FS 185 110 275 350 ___ 225 325 23 $294.00
1848 GC/MP 600 500 450 700 ___ 350 450 7 $1,349.53
1849 Go/PF 165 110 275 275 ___ 250 400 14 $308.79
1861 Ho/FM 1,625 UP 2,000 1,500 ___ 1,500 2,000 3 $139.11
1858 Mo/FH 165 110 275 250 ___ 200 275 7 $283.29
1862 Zs/VL 280 300 350 675 ___ 800 1,200 17 $712.10
1848 C/CE 1,500 UP 1,500 1,500 ___ 1,250 1,750 5 $3,233.33
1833 Do/RM 1,800 UP 1,250 1,000 ___ UP UP 5 $3,796.00
1844 Ga/MC 1,500 UP 1,500 1,750 ___ 1,000 1,500 5 $3,466.20
1848 GC/MP 1,000 900 1,100 1,300 ___ 850 1,250 7 $2,991.67
1829 Go/MJ 850 675 850 1,150 ___ 550 700 36 $791.90
1861 Ho/FM 3,750 UP 3,500 5,000 ___ 2,500 3,750 0 None Sold
1848 Mo/GC NL 900 NL NL ___ 700 NL 2 $207.50
1861 O/FR 7,750 UP 6,500 5,000 ___ 4,000 6,500 1 No Sale
1862 Zs/VL 1,000 800 1,000 4,000 ___ 2,250 3,500 18 $2,502.50
8 Escudos:
1847 Ca/RG NL NL NL NL UK UP UP 2 $8,250.00
1848 C/CE 450 400 900 800 700 1,250 1,000 19 $849.00
1840 Do/RM 625 400 900 825 800 1,000 1,000 5 $2,177.08
1829 EoMo/LF 4,500 NL 5,000 5,000 11,000 7,500 8,500 25 $5,203.63
1850 Ga/JG 700 850 900 1,300 2,000 1,000 1,100 25 $1,301.88
1848 GC/MP 600 650 1,000 1,225 900 1,250 1,250 29 $630.58
1829 Go/MJ 490 400 900 1,150 1,200 2,000 2,000 6 $1,256.25
1863 Ho/FM 750 725 1,000 1,550 2,000 1,000 1,000 20 $569.58
1835 Mo/ML 460 400 850 950 2,000 1,250 1,250 2 $3,075
1861 O/FR 750 850 1,500 2,000 4,000 1,500 1,250 67 $907.51
1862 Zs/VL 475 400 850 950 700 700 700 21 $756.23
Is Table 3 an eye opener? Or have you missed something? Maybe some discussion about this table and what it tells us is now in order.
First, the acronyms or abbreviations I use in Tables 3 and 6: NL means Not Listed; UK means Unknown; UP means Un-priced and NA means Not Available.
But there is a more interesting trend, the True Rarity for individual coins does not seem to influence these market values or average prices as much as one would think? Why?
Let’s start with the ½ Escudos and try to figure out this phenomena. I randomly selected all the coins in the Escudo table except, the Guadalupe y Calvo 1848 GC/MP and the Zacatecas 1862 Zs/VL, trying to get a good selection of the rather common to really rare coins. These two DAMs appear in all five gold Escudo series, ranging from rather common to very rare in the different denominations, so they are sorta control coins for this study. But they can also sometimes be a “Judas Goat”, appearing to be much rarer than they really are in the different series, as you will see. I have created another table below that encapsulates the appearance of the ½ Escudos in my sales database:
Table 4: The Appearance of All ½ Escudos DAMs in the FoxLair Sales Database:
Mint Highest Lowest DAM Used in Table 3
Durango 46 0 3
Guadalajara 13 0 9
Guadalupe y Calvo 30 4 30
Guanajuato 41 1 6
Mexico City 113 0 7
Zacatecas 43 12 43
From Table 4 you can see I used two of the highest recorded DAM appearances, but none of the lowest ones. I also elected to choose those DAMs where I had a large number of prices realized, a minimum of 75%, for the coins being sold or where they might appear on fixed price lists, in order to give us a good average price for this series. I also elected not use the rarest coin from any mint for this series because I had to use some of them in the other minor gold series.
It is interesting to see that most of my selected coins had a market value/price increase over the entire group for the first four selected catalogs, which one would expect. But this wasn’t always true, because in all but two cases Grove’s prices actually dropped. I purposely arranged the table so the earliest published guidebook would be first and the last shown last. I find it interesting that each of the market values/prices dropped significantly in the last edition, the 6th edition of the Buttrey & Hubbard book from Grove’s listings. Did this infer that Grove’s prices were all too high or was there another factor such as a general price reduction in the overall market from 1981 to 1992?
It is also interesting to note that in this series (½ Escudos) all of the market values/prices increased from the last Buttrey & Hubbard (1992) book to the Krause & Mishler (1999) book by almost 100% in most cases. This brings all but two back to the level of Grove’s listings or higher. So what happened from 1992 to 1999, was there a big spike in the Mexican coin market? Or do these new listings really reflect the market?
If we use the latest market values/prices when compared to my average prices we see that all but one are lower than the average sales for all grades not just the Extra Fines that are used. And most of these differences are significant, sometimes by as much as 100%. So what does this all mean?
It is now time for my personal theory about how these Mexican guidebooks influence the prices paid by collectors for coins. “I believe it is intentional that the listings of market values is placed low!” How can I prove or guarantee this? I can’t, but if you look at the entire group of Escudo coinage you will note that the vast majority of the reported Extra Fine market values are much lower than the overall sales averages I have found and entered into my database.
But to be sure let’s look at those DAMs that are not lower, case-by-case test in Table 5.
Table 5- Comparison of Higher Prices for Listed Market Value versus Average Sales Price:
DAM Value Average Sales
½ Escudos
1848 C/CE 150 $80.95 30 -$69.05
1857 C/CE 225 $143.25 14 -$81.75
1849 Go/PF 200 $167.00 10 -$33.00
1845 Mo/MF 150 $74.67 8 -$59.67
2 Escudos
1835 Ga/FS 325 $294.00 23 -$31.00
1861 Ho/FM 2,000 $139.11 3 -$1,860.89
1862 Zs/VL 1,200 $712.10 17 -$487.90
4 Escudos
8 Escudos
1848 C/CE 1,000 $849.00 19 -$151.00
1848 GC/MP 1,250 $630.58 29 -$619.42
1829 Go/MJ 2,000 $1,256.25 6 -$743.75
1863 Ho/FM 1,000 $569.58 20 -$430.42
1861 O/FR 1,250 $907.51 67 -$342.49
From a total of 44 DAM examples in the latest K&M listings of market value, I found 15 individual DAMs or 34% show a lower average price than their market values. Why?
Some of these 15 examples can be easily explained as having to do with the overall averages versus the Extra Fine market values, but not all of them fit into this category. Let’s look at the ones that I do not believe fit into this category. These include the 1 Escudo of 1845 Mo/MF; 2 Escudos 1861 Ho/FM and 1862 Zs/VL; 4 Escudos 1862 Zs/VL and five 8 Escudos: 1829 EoMo/LF, 1848 GC/MP, 1829 Go/MJ, 1863 Ho/FM, and 1861 O/FR.
The 1845 Mo/MF 1 Escudo has been a highly underrated rarity for a long time, even though I have 8 recorded past sales. It is also a very difficult coin to find in high-grade, and I do not have prices realized for two of the latest and highest graded coins sold making this average price out of line in my opinion. But this still does not explain why the prices are so low for such a rare coin?
Both of the 2 Escudos, the 1861 Ho/FM and 1862 Zs/VL, are special cases and need to be discussed here:
The 1861 Hermosillo 2 Escudo is an Exceedingly Rare coin for which I have only four sales records. One sale is unverified, one I have no price, and one sale took place in 1960 when it brought a whopping price of $42.50 on an estimate of $135. The second coin sale for which I have a price occurred at the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Hoard Sales in May of 1990 where it commanded a price of $235.71. As with many of the rarities in this sale it was literally stolen for a paltry $235.71 giving us an average sales price of only $139.11! There are reported to be as many as four to five additional specimens in other collections that were sold in private treaty sales with a rumored top price of $12,500, but I feel sure this coin is worth much more than the listed $2,000 market value it has today.
Next is a “Judas Goat”-- the Zacatecas 1862 Zs/VL! Long thought to be Exceedingly Rare it appears that is not case today. In fact if it were not for the last two-recorded sale prices of $1,540 and $3,220 the average price would be much lower at $455.50 than the now current average of $712.10. There have also been numerous private treaty sales of this coin, but because the other two dated 2 Escudos from Zacatecas are so much rarer than the 1862, it becomes the preferred Type coin for this mint keeping up the demand and prices.
Another “Judas Goat”, the 1862 Zacatecas, shows up again in the 4 Escudos. This appears to have been a very rare coin until sometime in the early to mid 1990s when a small group showed up, since 1993 there have been eight public offerings of mostly low-grade ugly coins. This date has become common enough that at least two of these eight offerings had no buyer and maybe more. The only really nice high-grade coin, an almost Uncirculated one, during this period sold for only $4,600.
Now we come to the 8 Escudos that don’t fit the mold. All of them except the 1829 Go/MJ have a single answer for the difference in the average price and the market values listed. The answer is the great Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s when all of these and even much rarer coins came to market in droves and it seems that K&M was unaware of this flood of coins when they printed their book.
The one coin, the 1829 Go/MJ, that is not part of this, is a mystery to me. This coin is so rare I can find only two sales before the Norweb Collection was sold in 1985 and only four since then, three of which came from the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard. The only one of the later sales not originally from Sotheby’s Hoard was the Gerber Specimen which I bought There are at least two varieties of this rare date, but I have no explanation or guess why this extreme rarity is so over-looked and underrated except for my following theory.
The Dumbo Rare Coin Theory
Do you remember Walt Disney’s flying elephant Dumbo when you were growing up? Yes, the elephant that wanted to fly because he had such large ears. Dumbo wanted to fly, but it took many people to convince him he could fly, he fell on his face many times before it actually happened, but he was finally able to fly. This is the basis for my Dumbo Rare Coin Theory, if enough people say and write down that a coin is rare then eventually most people will come to believe that coin is rare. Notice I said “most people”.
As a collector, do you ever have conversations with your local friendly Mexican coin dealer after he has recently returned from a coin show? If you are like me, he knows what I’m calling about? I want to know if he found any new good coins for my collection? These guys generally start the conversation with one of two sentences:
#1. “It was a terrible buying trip, I didn’t find one coin for you or any of my good customers.”
#2. “It was a great buying trip, but I didn’t find one coin you need!”
Notice these same dealers never say a damn word about selling… only buying! This is the key to being a successful coin dealer, buying the right coins at the right price! Selling comes easy if you know who is buying on the retail level, but the key is buying at the right (lowest) price.
As a con dealer, it is in your best interests to keep prices artificially low for buying your coins, because you can always explain to your retail customer why your coin should cost more than the market values shown in the guidebooks that are so-out-of-date or poorly written.
But if a guy walks up to the dealer’s booth at a show with a great coin and doesn’t know what it should sell for or how rare it really is, it is to the buying dealer’s advantage to pull out the trusty old guidebook. Now the dealer will show him “in print” that the coin isn’t as rare or shouldn’t sell for what Dumbo thought.
Dumbo knows what he reads in the printed book has to be correct, my god it is printed in “the” book and we always know “the” book is always the way everyone prices Mexican coins? Isn’t it? And if a particular coin is a ringer and the people who publish “the book” don’t know it, why should any dealer want to inform them of this error?
Now Hear This My Son…
There are three sides to every argument and the Dumbo Mexican Coin Theory:
The first version is for when you are selling coins to dealers: The Dumbo Common Coin Theory:
“If someone tells you, and shows you in print that a coin is common, and priced low, then it has to be common, and only worth the money listed in the catalog”
The second version is for when you are buying common coins from dealers: The Dumbo Rare Coin Theory:
“If someone tells you, and shows you in print a coin is rare, then that coin has to be rare and worth every penny or even more than the catalog states."
The third version is for when you are buying rare coins from dealers: The Dumbo Super Rare Coin Theory:
"If someone tells you, and shows you in print that a coin is common or rare, but tells you it has been completely ignored by catalogers since the 1970s, it must be worth what the dealer is asking for it."
Unless of course it is being offered by another dealer, "Boy that coin is priced way too high, offer him half of what he wants."!
Or even worse, "You don't want that piece of junk, you should wait until a better one comes along!"
Enough of my B.S. for one issue, if we have enough interest, next time we will examine a few of the decimal gold coins to see if the Dumbo Coin Theory principals work there too!
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