(402) The Front Page: Volume 1 Issue 4: Last Revision: 08/31/05
They said it couldn’t be done, but you are now reading the fourth issue of Mexican Coin Magic on the Internet! We hope you will find something of interest?
ANA Mexican Revolutionary War Exhibit Moves On to Texas
Mr. Meza informed us that the city government is going to roll out the red carpet to all history buffs and Mexican Numismatists for this unprecedented event. Ed went on to say, “I want to invite all Mexican coin collectors from Texas and Mexico to attend our presentation of this great historical exhibit. We feel privileged to be the first stop selected outside the ANA Headquarters. There will also be new additions to the display that weren’t seen in Bolder, Colorado including some items from local collectors that we are adding to the display. Hopefully, these will include what may be the finest known Chihuahua Parral 1 Peso from local dealer and collector Rod Bates.”
Meza went on to say, “We are honored to have Mr. Don Bailey, the Executive Director of the US Mexican Numismatic Association, and several other prominent Mexican Revolutionary coin collectors attending the grand opening in Port Isabel. Don has also informed us he will be bringing some new, unseen items for the exhibit.”
Mr. Meza said there are some special events planned for the opening of the exhibit, but couldn’t supply us with details before our publishing deadline, therefore he requested those interested in attending the gala grand opening contact him by phone at (956) 943-7602 for more information. Ed said the exhibit would be open to the public at the Museums of Port Isabel from November 21, 2005 until May 21, 2006.
A side note: The Museums of Port Isabel, under the direction of Mr. Meza, have become one of the best small museums in North America and will also have many new items and displays covering the history of Texas and northern Mexico, so you better plan to spend at least a full day touring them.
Fake U.S. and Mexican Coins Beginning to Worry Collectors, Dealers and Third Party Grading Services
Wow! One of the big stories for this Quarter doesn’t have a thing to do with Mexican Numismatics, but it does indicate the problems the third party grading firms have with circulating counterfeits and modern fakes. The big news is that most of the major third party grading services have finally had to publicly acknowledge several fake U.S. Morgan Silver Dollars that have long been certified as genuine.
Public acknowledgement of these fakes presents a potential liability for these firms that Coin World estimates could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. But there are also ramifications that could spill over into Mexican Numismatics!
We are seeing unscrupulous coin sellers in China and Thailand listing fakes, either totally new DAMs (Date/Assayer/Mintmarks) or altered Date and Assayer Mexican Republic 8 Reales on eBay® almost weekly. Many of these coins can fool even experts because they are so well made. Some fakes appear to be made with completely new dies, while the altered Date and Assayer coins are many times being made from genuine coins from the correct styles for that time frame.
This new trend presents big problems for the third party grading services and Mexican coin collectors for a number of reasons:
So what is the Mexican coin collector to do? If you can’t trust the third party grading services or the experts to verify a genuine coin, what are your alternatives?
Today the answer is to buy carefully! Buy from people, both dealers and collectors that give you a good return policy after you receive and study the coin. And hope that someday the overall Mexican Numismatic Community will decide to tackle this problem with enough interest to learn to use the new nondestructive testing methods available to really solve this problem.
New U.S. Collectors Entering Mexican Coin Collecting
We are beginning to see more crossovers into Mexican Numismatics from U.S. collectors who seem to have become disenchanted with U.S. coins. After talking to several newbie Mexican collectors I’m convinced that this is happening for several reasons.
The main reason for this crossover seems to be the perceived value of extreme rarities versus today’s low prices for most Mexican coins. Most Truly Rare U.S. coins, in decent grades, are at all time highs, yet Mexican coins at the same rarity level are cheap.
The second reason is “U.S. Coin Grading Inflation”! This grading inflation has been rampant during the last few years in all U.S. coin series. In fact, Q. David Bowers takes this problem to task in his The Joys of Collecting column in the July 4, 2005 edition of Coin World. Bowers states that collector coins that were one time graded VF-20 are many times graded EF-40 today. Another columnist for Coin World, Eric von Klinger, discusses Grade Inflation and other grading problems in an article of the July 18, 2005 edition in the Beginners’ Workshop where he discusses “Market and technical grading” and the problems the Third-Party Grading Services are creating with non-technical grading.
A third reason for many of these new U.S. collectors entering foreign coin collecting may be the widely accepted 70-point grading system used for U.S. coins. This 70-point system allows for exponential price increases for small grade improvements and when coupled with “grade inflation” it is creating some questions of sanity among advanced U.S. coin collectors. Several of these “crossover” collectors I have recently talked to have been “dumping” what they believe are “over-priced” U.S. coins and have been searching for alternatives in the foreign coin market. Not all are deciding to go with Mexican coins, but the few that are seem to be making significant purchases, especially in Mexican Republic gold.
Some in Mexican Numismatics feel this is good news, while others see it as the end of the era of cheap prices for Rare Mexican coins. I’m feel certain that both groups are correct to some degree, but it may well be several years before we know for sure.
I personally believe an often-overlooked benefit of the price advances in Mexican coins will be that previously hoarded material will come on the market in the near future. My reasoning is that when coins are very cheap sellers hold on to coins because they know a particular coin is Rare or Rare in high grade – for example the Catorce (CE) 8 Reales (8R) is known to exist in choice mint state but as far as we have been able to determine there are less that a dozen in that lofty state of preservation and most of the so called Uncirculated specimens are really no better than Almost Uncirculated (a high grade for the CE 8R by the way) and they have sentimental value, but as prices advance collectors are willing to sell such specimens because they become closer to their actual worth and sentimental value decreases.
To prove this theory, just look at the recent mailing from the Goldbergs. They provided us a look at a fabulous collection that contains many great Latin American rarities, yet they make no mention of it being for sale. One can only wonder what the real purpose for this expensive mailing was? Was it a device to tell the foreign coin collectors that the Goldbergs are the leading builder of great foreign coin collections or are they priming the pump to sell that collection in the near future? Only time or the Goldbergs will tell.
The Mexican Coin Auction Scene
Since the Eliasberg Sale things have slowed way down, but there has still been a few interesting coins show up in recent Richard Long and Ponterio & Associates auctions.
There is supposed to be some nice material in the coming fall auction season, but we have received no information or lists at this time so we can't give you any advance information!
New Books on the Horizon:
As predicted by many, the FoxLair Partners missed delivering their new Mexican Republic Gold Pesos handbook because of some family problems including a death. Hopefully the book will be back on track soon, as all but the covers were delivered to the printer during August and the finished product is expected to be ready in October 2005.
Rob Rollo, the ultimate 2 Escudo collector in the U.S., has said we will see the much-awaited Mexican Republic 2 Escudo book late this (2005) fall or early next year, and there is a very interesting story behind it being published. More about that later.
FoxLair Partners, Ltd. Has Some Good News:
The FoxLair Mexican Republic 8 Escudos Reference Collection is finally complete and ready to be ordered [FoxLair Reference Collections], plus the majority (over 400 individual specimens) of the 8 Escudos in it are now for sale! See the Items for Sale [413a- Items for Sale] for a few of the exceptional coins in this collection. If you are looking for a particular Mexican Republic 8 Escudo be sure to contact us by email FoxLairAJ@aol.com or by phone (956) 943-8409.
Editorial:
Mexican Coin Magic was started with several goals in mind. Our first was to try to improve communications in the World of Mexican Numismatics! In the past there has been little in the way of communications between individual Mexican coin collectors. We believe there are several reasons for this lack of communications:
(a) Mexican coin collectors live all over the globe and simply don’t know each other
(b) Many Mexican coin collectors are rather “tight fisted” with the information they have been able glean over their years of collecting
(c) Today everyone, including coin collectors, worries about their personal security with good reason
(d) Good published information about Mexican coins and their overall True Rarity and the prices paid for varying grades has been almost nonexistent
(e) Many collectors fear that we will experience a general and overall price increase of Mexican coins if good information is finally published, thus costing them more money to purchase rare coins
Our second goal was to provide a place where good information could be published both easily and cheaply about all series of Mexican coins in order to help educate current collectors and beginners. This educational process includes items such as the history of the mints, the people behind the mints and even something as fundamental as good lists of the coins that were manufactured in the Mexican Mints and a good numbering system for them.
Anyone involved for any length of time in Mexican coin collecting soon discovers what Dr. Alex Siegel calls the “conspiracy of silence” in his book review (Coin Views & Reviews: Volume 1 Issue 3: Something New) of Resplandores that has caused much trouble in our little world of numismatics. We hope to change all of this.
Before starting Mexican Coin Magic we thought it would be easy to receive a little ink from some of the numismatic publications, organizations and even coin dealers.
However, until recently the numismatic world seemed to be ignoring us! Finally in the July 4, 2005 edition of Coin World, page 70, we received a nice short article about our website. We were beginning to wonder if this lack of ink and publicity was because no one was interested in Mexican Numismatics or that we had simply “missed the boat” with our content? We can only hope neither is the case because most Americans seem to belong to the “great silent majority” and don’t generally make or write either good or bad comments about most subjects.
We will continue to plug away for a while as we are doing. However, if we don’t see some increase in feedback from the Mexican coin collecting community, I’m afraid we must cease providing this “free” forum to our readers.
This isn’t the first time I have been personally been involved in a project designed to increase the awareness in an area that I thought needed help. In the past it seems that what I believe needs to be done isn’t what the general public seems to think is important.
We are trying to provide educational material for and about Mexican Numismatics and yet so far there doesn’t seem to be anyone who wants to be educated?
If you enjoy what we are trying to accomplish, why not drop us a line, give us a call, or even email us telling us what you think? Isn’t it time to break “conspiracy of silence”?
One last thought; we would love to hear from any and all coin dealers and auction houses, all over the world, about the Mexican material you have for sale before the fact! While we receive a few catalogs and price lists, there are many we don’t, making it impossible to inform our readers about your upcoming sales. Even if don’t feel prompted to send us your expensive catalogs or price lists for free, you could at least provide us with the highlights or even entire lists of all the Mexican items. We promise to publish and publicize your sale here, and it won’t cost you a dime.
Dealers and auction houses Email your stuff to MexCoinMagic@aol.com and title your email: Upcoming Mexican Coin Sale. Remember it’s a free service. And while you are doing this why don’t you checkout our Magic Links (Magic Links) and allow us to add your email address to our site so our readers can find you?
[401] Go to Table of Contents Volume 1 Issue 4
[Home Page] Return to Mexican Coin Magic Home Page
[ MexCoinMagic@aol.com ] Contact Us