A Story of Smuggling & Intrigue During the Early Republican Period
Mexican Coin Magic and our readers are very fortunate today! Richard Doty has given us permission to reprint an article he wrote in 1986 after years of exhaustive research in England. This article appeared in Volume 56 of The British Numismatic Journal and has been seen by very few Mexican Coin Collectors in the United States and Mexico, unless of course you are a member of the British Numismatic Society?
In fact, the only reason I know about the article was because I loaned Mr. Doty a couple of the coins he used as examples for the article in 1986. He graciously sent me a photocopy of the article for my research that I have saved and shared, over the last 20 years, with a few collectors who were interested.
I thought this would be a good follow up story to our Issue 5 story about smuggling gold specie and bullion out-of-Mexico. This article gives us a good look at what restrictive laws can do to the economy of any country when politicians meddle with commerce. Be sure to read this issue’s Front Page to see what these types of restrictive laws are currently doing to our hobby.
First, let me apologize for the quality of the reproduction of the article, I scanned a photocopy of the article Doty made for me years ago. However, it is very readable and the content is excellent, which is the norm for any piece or book authored by Richard.
I suggest you read this article carefully, if you are interested in the making of the coins during the early Republic Period. Doty documents some of the trials and tribulations of one of the more advanced mints during the formative years of the young Mexican Republic. Richard gives us definitive answers to why we find so many OverDates, OverAssayers and even OverMintmarks on the early Republican coinage. He goes into detail about the problems created by the lack of good steel to make punches, dies and hubs in Mexico. He gives names, job descriptions and almost draws pictures of the individuals involved at the Guanajuato Mint, both in Mexico and in England. We can actually see the results of mistakes made by real people. We even learn what equipment was used in this mint to manufacture the coins.
Almost as important, we see how the mishandling of people greatly affected the minting operations in Guanajuato. We see how alcoholism destroys people and their lives, making it difficult or impossible for employers to deal with them. On the other hand we see what happens when employers don’t treat their employees fairly, or with respect, or pay them sufficient wages for their work. We see how terrible contracts destroy people and upset commercial ventures. I’ll be damned if this story doesn’t read like one of today’s “soap operas”, yet it occurred in the early 1800s. I guess we, of today’s world, still haven’t learned our lesson about greed, have we?
Enough of my rambling, let’s get on with Richard’s unbelievable story of the Guanajuato Mint…
Wow, see what I told you? Isn’t this a Great article! Thanks, Richard, for sharing your hard work with us and allowing Mexican Coin Magic to reprint your fascinating article here. I’m sure a few of our readers will want to ask questions and thank you after they read it?