This Spanish edition of 2,000 copies contains four essays by different authors, an appendix and a bibliography and was published to commemorate the collection of Licio Lagos. Lagos concentrated on gold and silver coins minted from 1732 through the 20th century revolutionary period. Through the auspices of Carlos Slim, the collection was sold intact to the Mexican mining company Empresas Frisco with the understanding that the company would bear the cost of any additional purchases that Lagos might make for the collection. At the time of sale, the collection contained 1,259 gold coins and 1,186 silver ones.
The Lagos Collection was particularly strong in Colonial gold. The only 8 Escudos missing was the Ga 1813 FS. As to the other denominations, the collection lacked twenty-one 4 Escudos, eight 2 Escudos, and nine 1 Escudo coins. These figures would have been more useful if a complete inventory had been included, or barring that, a listing of all the coins that were missing. On the plus side, seventy-five of the book’s pages have beautiful photographs. In addition, drawings of different mints by H.G. Ward form the background of the photos of several coins.
The first essay by Socorro Lagos de Minvielle, “A Brief Biographical Sketch of Licio Lagos Teran,“ presents a laudatory overview of Lagos’ career as an attorney, business executive, collector and environmentalist. Judging from the many positions he held and his eclectic interests, he was a man of enormous energy. Other books based on his collecting interests include (in Spanish), The Licio Lagos Collection of Mexican Paintings (1968), Mexican Landscape in the Collection of Licio Lagos (1971), The Licio Lagos Collection of Mexican Archaeology (1971), and Foreign Painters in the Licio Lagos Collection.
Lagos narrates his own history and that of his hobby in the second essay, “Background,” which begins with the granting of his law degree on July 30, 1926. From the beginning, his intent was to form a collection that would eventually end up in a museum. He began with gold coins and moved on to silver in 1976. Interestingly, Lagos dedicates five of the fourteen pages of his essay to one piece, the 60 peso 1916 Oaxaca gold coin. That coin was issued during a turbulent period of the Mexican Revolution when that state was attempting to defy the authority of the central government. In addition to reviewing the different versions of the creation and diffusion of this remarkable coin, he details how he acquired his specimen and lists his own conclusions.
Lagos purchased his coin from Eduardo Bustamente who was a child when it was minted. According to Bustamente, his father was one of the few individuals from Oaxaca who placed some of these coins into circulation. He acquired seven or eight of them and gave his two sons, Eduardo and Alberto, one each in 1921 to cover the expenses of their first months in Mexico City at a time when communications with the capital were difficult. Eduardo was given a second coin by his father in 1925 when he received his law degree, and that, presumably, is the coin that Lagos acquired in 1972. All the coins were minted from gold from one specific Oaxacan mine, the Natividad, which has its own distinct color. According to Lagos, careful examination of the edge of these coins with a microscope is one of the best ways to ascertain their authenticity.
The two remaining essays are the most extensive and detailed in the book, “Notes on Mining and Precious Metals in Mexico” by Jose E. Iturriaga, and “An Outline of the History of Mexico and its Numismatic Consequences” by Elsa Lizalde Chavez. Here the contextual information is abundant. The first mentioned article is rich in production charts and the second in extensive notes.
Add to this, the ten page Appendix, “Some Events that Influenced the Numismatic History of Mexico,” and you have more than enough data to satisfy most history buffs. In this sense, this engaging and informative book reflects the eclectic interests of Licio Lagos and the importance of his singular collection.