Since I agreed to write this article for Mexican Coin Magic, much has happened. Ralph Poucher’s article on the Republic 1 Escudo coinage was published in the last issue of Mexican Coin Magic, Richard Long’s long awaited book on Mexican Republic Gold 1823-1873 (Escudo Coinage) has been published and I re-read my previous article written for Mexican Coin Magic; “The Challenges of Collecting Republic Gold 1 Pesos”. All three of these endeavors used different approaches to try to convey similar information. What to do? What to do? If you, the reader, will indulge me I might try a combination of all three approaches. In addition I apologize in advance if I “borrow” from the two previously mentioned authors. Please do not assume all of the information in this article is a product of my own research and not all options were developed in a vacuum or on my own.
How could anyone not love the Mexican Republic ½ Escudo? These miniature works of art minted from 1825 to 1870 traverse the period when coins were produced from virtually all hand punched dies to the time when the wide spread use of hubbed dies prevailed. We have the numerous Mexican eagles, often unique to a single mint, the European or Paris Style Eagle and my personal favorite the Sonora Style Eagle. There are over dates and varieties enough to allow any serious collector using a good loupe – even if he doesn’t have 20/20 eyesight – to find a discovery piece. The majority of the DAM’s (Date/Assayer/Mintmark) are relatively obtainable in Extra Fine to Brilliant Uncirculated condition. Remember, as in political elections, majority means 50% +1.
There are two problems that concern the collector when attempting to assemble a set of ½ Escudo coins, yea in all series of Mexican Republic coins. The first is finding reliable information as to which grade is acceptable and what price is reasonable. The second dilemma is that once the collector is armed with the necessary information, where does one find the coin?
If you’re a constant reader of Mexican Coin Magic I know you’ve been exposed to this before and are probably sick of hearing it, but it bears repeating. Today’s catalogs are not completely reliable sources for data on the existence, non-existence, price, availability, normal condition of ½ Escudo coins, and that applies to most other series of Mexican coins. This data is indispensable for any serious collector.
You as a collector have three choices. First, wait until you find each coin at, or near catalog price. If you think you can do that, you might as well plan on winning the lottery a couple of dozen times. It simply won’t happen. Two, buy such reliable information as is available in the market place. Richard Long’s book Gold Coins of the Early Mexican Republic: 1823-1873 and the FoxLair Population Recap reports and FoxLair Reference Collections are the best available sources of rarity by date and condition available to the public at large. I consider FoxLair Reference Collection the best due to the fact it contains scans of most ½ Escudo issues. The scans are invaluable when attempting to detect counterfeits and varieties. However, those sources have a serious weakness. They do not include the vast majority of private treaty sales. If I were to make a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess), I would think between 40-70% of the transactions for better Mexican Republic Gold coins are handled by private treaty. Third, as a source of information, you can affiliate yourself with one or more of the reputable dealers specializing in this area of Mexican coinage. I have always tried to use a combination of the second and third approaches.
When I locate a coin I believe is a better DAM based on the Long book or FoxLair Population Recap report, I still call a dealer whose knowledge I believe is better than both of the above sources and ask his opinion. This has kept me from making some big mistakes. Remember, believing a coin is rarer than it is, is much more costly than thinking it is more common than it is. Access to all sources of information also allows you to sell to the public via auction or through a dealer acting as your agent depending on what information is available to the public at large.
Today, many common and semi-common coins are selling for very high prices in non-traditional Mexican coin auctions such as Heritage Rare Coin auctions. While the use of a good dealer guaranties a reasonable realization for an unrecognized rarity. Since, the purpose of this article is to convey information to collectors I’ll tell you that the dealers I consider the most knowledgeable are Mike Dunigan, Rick Ponterio and Jed Crump. For Richard Long’s knowledge you should buy his book. I’m sure there are other very knowledgeable dealers who know this series well, but I just happen to have dealt with these four gentlemen in the past and have found all of them to be a pleasure to do business with.
Once you acquire the knowledge of which grade is collectible, and have a good idea of how rare the coin is you can make a reasonable determination of the value of the coin. Remember the following when considering price. A coin with the same population is generally more expensive if it is needed by different Type Collectors, less if only by Mint Collectors, less if by Assayer Collectors, less if by DAM Collectors and the least if by Variety Collectors.
Although the examples I am about to give do not all apply to ½ Escudo issues they will help explain what I’m trying to illustrate. The Mo 1823 JM Hookneck 8 Escudo sells for many times the price of any other 8 Escudos of equal rarity. Why is that? Could it be because every one who collects 8 Escudos except the Denomination Collector needs to acquire an example of the Hookneck Style? Type Collectors need it. Mint Type Collectors need it. DAM Collectors need it and Variety Collectors need it. Why does the Alamos 1 Peso gold coin sell for more than a Culiacan 1 Peso of equal rarity? It’s because anyone who collects by mint must have the Alamos coin which was minted in a single year which is rare, but only DAM Collectors need the rare Culiacan coin as there are numerous common date Culiacan 1 Peso pieces for the Mint Type Collector. This logic simply illustrates the law of supply and demand. The more collectors who need a particular coin, the higher the demand, which usually means a higher price. In the ½ Escudo series fortunately there are no very rare types, no rare mints and only a few rare assayers. We’ll talk more about that later. The last thing you must remember about price is this: If you have two coins of equal rarity, a condition consensus coin in Very Fine is worth less the condition consensus coin in almost Uncirculated condition.
Now that we know something about condition, rarity and price, where do we find the coins? Looking for a ½ Escudo on price lists and at coin shows is fun, but generally becomes fruitless after you acquire the most common DAMs. Anything rare is usually sold long before you have a chance to buy it at a show. Within a reasonably short time you will be down to two major options. Buy at auction or buy from a specialized dealer. A third option, which is perhaps better, would be to buy from both. I promise you that all the dealers I mentioned above have active want lists from collectors of ½ Escudo coins. The hard fact is that you earn your way up the list by buying coins when they are offered. When it comes to rarer DAM’s there are more collectors than coins. At auction you will be competing with both collectors and those same dealers as they are trying to fill their want lists. While this implies you will have to pay market value it does not mean you will necessarily have to “over” pay for the coins. After all if you buy a coin at auction, unless you buy it for the opening bid, there is always an under bidder. I believe the market for ½ Escudos, as well as most Republic gold, is not right at this time. There are two primary reasons: More US collectors and dealers are buying Mexican coins due to the perceived price/rarity ratio and Mexican collectors continue to improve their knowledge of the true rarity of the coins due to publications such as FoxLair’s and Richard Long’s. Those who continue to use the catalogs as their basis of information are doomed to buy only the most common DAM’s.
Before we get down to specifics; one area that bears mentioning is counterfeits. According to Richard Long in his book on Republic Escudos, he states that ½ Escudo counterfeits are not a problem and are not often encountered. In my experience counterfeits are much more common than Mr. Long indicates in his book. In fact I am confident in stating that the ½ Escudo is the most counterfeited of all Mexican Republic gold coins. Since most were contemporary counterfeits they are not usually rare dates. The problem they cause is the “creation” of new DAM’s and varieties. The C 1859 CE is in most catalogs, and is in the FoxLair Population Recap report and Richard Long’s book. Both sources list two known examples, possibly the same coin. I’ve had people tell me all C 1859 CE ½ Escudo pieces are counterfeits. I have one that is a counterfeit and have never seen a real one. So were the two listings mentioned above counterfeits but listed as genuine coins? Or were they exceedingly rare genuine coins? At this time I must acknowledge that I simply don’t know, but you can see the problems or potential problems counterfeits can cause. FoxLair’s data reflects a Go 1851 PF and a Go 1852 PF and calls them error assayers. FoxLair has a total of five listings for the two coins. I have a ½ Escudo Go 1851 PF, but it’s a counterfeit. So do actual error assayers exist or are they all counterfeits and/or genuine PE’s with strike weakness at the bottom of the E. Once again I don’t know for sure. FoxLair lists two other DAM’s where all known examples are counterfeits. I do know counterfeits have and will continue to be interesting to collect, but are a cause of much misinformation and confusion in the ½ Escudo series. Your best defense against counterfeits is to acquire/develop a good reference collection so you can compare eagles and styles of genuine coins of the date in question or genuine dates immediately before and after the coin in question. This makes most counterfeits stick out like a sore thumb.
Now let’s take an overview. The gold ½ Escudo was minted at seven mints: Culiacan, Durango, Guadalajara, Guadalupe y Calvo, Guanajuato, Mexico City and Zacatecas. Per Richard Long there are 96 DAM’s as well as many over dates and other varieties. He shows 19 coins with a population of between 10-20 and 25 coins with a population of 0-9. So even if one assumes 2 to 3 times the number of coins mentioned by Long exist due to private treaty sales, you can see there are still 44 of 96 DAM’s that are Very Scare to Exceedingly Rare.
It always amazes me that with hard searching and working with a good dealer or two how many of these coins can be acquired. I’ve been collecting this series seriously for about 12 years and I am missing 9 DAM’s from Richard Long’s list. Of these eight have a population of 0-9 and one has population of 10-19. I have one DAM he doesn’t list and have been told by sources I believe to be reliable that at least two additional DAM’s exist. So you can see the task is difficult, but a lot of progress can be made.
Most common date ½ Escudo coins sell for $175 and under in aUnc, and $250 and under for the BUnc common dates. The extreme rarities and rare type coins can easily go from $1,000 to $3,500. The best current data on pricing would be from one the dealers mentioned in this article. The Mexican Republic gold market is hot right now so most historical pricing is out of date.
FoxLair# Do-1834-1102 Paris Style Dies
FoxLair# Ga-1825-1101Mexican Style Dies
FoxLair# GC-1848-1101 Mexican Style Dies
FoxLair# GC-1851-1101Sonora Style Dies
FoxLair# Go-1849-1101 Guanajuato Style Dies with small “o” from inside the “G” Mintmark
FoxLair# Go-1857-2101Mexican Style Dies with New Mintmark: Large Superscript “O” to the right of the “G”
FoxLair# Mo-1868-1101Mexican Style Dies
FoxLair# Zs-1862-1101Mexican Style Dies
If you are interested in corresponding about these fascinating coins I can be reached at www.mexcoins@flash.net.