Authors Note: You should consider this work to be only a primer; it is currently a work in process, and I feel sure others will add to, and correct my errors and omissions in the future. While I didn’t spend 20+ years collecting the Mexican Republic Decimal Gold, like I did the Cap & Ray 8 Reales and the Hand on Book 8 Escudos, I have been studying them diligently for the past several years in order to produce the FoxLair Reference Collections. Furthermore, I have had some wonderful collaborators who have contributed greatly to this study in order to make it better and more meaningful.
Today, we see more and more Mexican silver and gold coins from new sources worldwide making their way to the public market created by eBay, Yahoo, and other Internet providers. Because of this increased activity the demand for some Mexican Republic coins, especially the Hand on Book 8 Escudos, Cap & Ray 8 Reales, and Gold 1 Pesos has soared due to the public auctions conducted daily on the Internet. We have seen some very rare to extremely rare Republican 20 Pesos on these websites, including several unlisted varieties, from several mints including Culiacan, Durango, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, and Mexico City; I feel sure we will see more in the future. However, the Mexican Republic 20 Peso coins haven’t, until recently, seen a lot of activity.
In my personal opinion this is one of the least collected and most misunderstood series of Mexican Republican coins. Today, there are very few serious or advanced collectors of this series making it a “cherry pickers” delight.
The Eagle Side or Obverse features the ancient Aztec symbol of victory; an eagle grasping a snake in its beak and its right claw while using the other leg to stand on a cactus above a stone that is rising out of Lake Texcoco. Below and to the right are laurel branches with leaves and berries; to the left are oak branches with leaves and acorns. The legend around the top half of the outer perimeter of the coin normally reads REPUBLICA MEXICANA. Sometimes there is a dot after MEXICANA, and sometimes there is not. Unlike the earlier escudo gold coins from the Mexican Republic we find the date on the eagle side of all the decimal gold.
The Denomination Side or Reverse features a Balance Scale imposed over a sword, a scroll with LEY (Law) written on it and a small Phrygian cap with the word LIBERTAD (Liberty) in letters across its base above the central devices. Extending out from behind the Cap are the sun’s Rays. This design signifies the dawning of liberty (freedom from Spanish rule) in Mexico, and a balance of power between the three branches of the federal government. The Reverse legend normally reads “Mintmark Assayer. Denomination, (VEINTE PESOS) Fineness”. For example a Guanajuato 20 Pesos minted in 1871 would read: “GO S. VEINTE PESOS 875”. Note that there are some variances from mint to mint, and even year to year within an individual mint, which many collectors find fascinating. These range from lines under the mintmark, no lines under the mintmark, over mintmarks, over assayer’s initials and over dates to name a few.
The Edge Design: the edge design is commonly referred to as a reeded edge, unlike the ornamental edge used on the earlier escudo coinage.
The Fineness: is always expressed as “875” (again different from the earlier escudo coinage’s of “21 Q”) that represents a fineness of .875 gold and .125 copper composition of the decimal gold. This change in the legends caused some early consternation for the decimal gold, even though both used exactly the same mixture of gold and copper for all practical purposes.
The first Mexican 20 Pesos weren’t Republican coins, but were created during the reign of Maximilian during 1866 in the Mexico City Mint. Most Mexican Republic 20 Pesos saw little usage in Mexico during the time they were manufactured, and like the earlier 8 Escudos they were generally shipped out of the country and overseas quickly after being minted. The final Republican 20 Pesos were supposedly made in 1905 in the Culiacan and Mexico City mints, however I still can’t confirm the Culiacan 1905 20 Peso.
All of the Republican mints making decimal coinage except Guadalajara and San Luis Potosi minted some production 20 Pesos. A few Republican mints such as Culiacan, Guanajuato, and Mexico City made substantial quantities of 20 Pesos in a number of years, but most of the remaining mints produced very few.
Some of the rarest of the Mexican Republic gold coins are found in the 20 Peso series with less than a handful of specimens known. Even commonly thought to be 20 Pesos are sometimes difficult to find. I personally suspect less than a handful of Republic 20 Peso DAMs are represented by over 100 coins in today’s numismatic market. My research, of public sales from 1878 to date, indicates there are more 20 Peso DAMs that have no public sales than in any other decimal gold series.
Completing any “World Class” Mexican Republic 20 Pesos Collection can be a lifetime challenge for the collector, and a “World Class DAM Collection” would probably number less than 30 different coins.
Denomination Type Collection by Mint: The most popular and simplest method of collecting Mexican Republic 20 Pesos is a Mint-by-Mint Denomination Type Collection:
This 20 Peso collection will need nine different coins, however it will be very difficult to find an example from Alamos and Hermosillo. Grade level criteria will also greatly influence the amount of time and money needed to complete this collection. For example: If you can be satisfied with a few Very Fine specimens it should take a couple of years to complete this collection except for an Alamos coin; however anything better will be much more difficult and costly. This collection would be almost impossible to assemble in near Mint State condition today, unless one of the great old collections comes on the market. And even if that happens you might not be able to afford the ultra high-grade coins in the collection … unless you have a substantial budget.
Mint Style Collection: The next easiest method of collecting 20 Pesos. This collection can vary greatly in the total number of coins needed depending on the individual collector’s definition of the styles. Most collectors have no idea that there are multiple styles of 20 Pesos. The individual collector must first decide if he or she will collect all of the styles mentioned in this work, or only the two most common ones; the Style of 1869 and the Style of 1888. This collection presents a challenge for collector because so little information has been written about the decimal gold coins in the past. The Mint Style Collector will need at least 16 different coins. Here is a list of what I consider to be the major style changes by mint:
Mint Assayer Collection: This collecting method reaches the next plateau of difficulty because there are several assayers that are very difficult to find. This collector will need 26 different coins. Here are the confirmed assayers:
Mint DAM Collection: The Date, Assayer, and Mintmark (DAM) collection is the second most difficult method of collecting 20 Pesos and should provide years of excitement and a most stimulating challenge for this collector. This collector would need 153 different coins to complete this collection, but several are currently unverified coins and several are questionable.
Mint Variety Collection: This is the most ambitious collection possible. The Variety Collector has a dramatically moving, and dynamic challenge because new varieties are being discovered as collectors begin to trade information. While we don’t ever expect to find as many varieties as found in other longer series of Republican coins, there are still many varieties that are currently known to advanced collectors of 20 Pesos that remain unpublished in catalogs. This collection would need 190 different coins to complete, if you look at the number of varieties we have found in our research. However some of these varieties are questionable, as they haven’t been verified. Here are the varieties we have found at this time in our research by mint:
To give you some idea of the difficulty of assembling this collection the single largest collection of Mexican Republic 20 Pesos ever sold belonged to Pablo Gerber, and it contained only 60 specimens.
All Mint Date Collection: Finally a method that hasn’t been popular in the past, but that is gaining popularity, and requires only one coin for each year from any mint. This collection would need a total of 36 20 Pesos to complete. Here are the individual (some are not verified) years of 20 Pesos production by mint:
This collection might seem to be a formidable task, but one serious collector has informed us that he has almost completed this task. He also indicates it was rather inexpensive when compared to other methods of collecting Mexican Republic 20 Pesos. However, he also cautioned that it would take much longer if he was not satisfied with a few lower grade coins. Like all other methods of collecting 20 Pesos, one could spend a lifetime collecting or upgrading this collection depending on his or her grade level criteria for inclusion. A word of caution here: many of the late 1880s and 1890s 20 Pesos are very difficult to find, so if you happen to have a chance to buy one consider it to be a “no-pass” coin no matter what its price may be.
A couple of times a year there were public or mail bid auctions by Richard Long, Ponterio & Associates, Coin Galleries, and Superior Galleries where you could be assured of finding an occasional nice 20 Peso. Additionally there were a few bid or buy price lists from Jed Crump at Pat Johnson Rare Coins. Duane Douglas, Alejandro Cortina, Alberto Hidalgo, and Luis Gomez Wulschner, all from Mexico, had occasional public auctions in conjunction with coin shows in Mexico City and Guadalajara where you might find a common (sic) date 20 Pesos. The Cayon family in Spain had an auction or two each year where you could generally find some nice Mexican Colonial pieces, and a Republic gold piece from time to time.
There were several coin shows in the US where a number of dealers handling Mexican material might show up: Long Beach, California, twice a year, the January FUN Show in Orlando, Florida, the old New York City International Coin Show in December, The CICS in Chicago, or the Money Sow in Houston.
By the 1990s all of the old popular periodicals, such World Coins and the Numismatic Scrapbook, where you could find many wonderful Mexican coins in space ads, were long gone. Most of the old time U.S. coin dealers that once specialized in Latin American and Mexican coins such as Harvey Bruins, Henry Christensen, Abner Kriesberg, Hans Schulman, and Neil Utberg, to name a few, who created fixed price lists and/or an occasional mail bid sale were no more.
Or you could travel to Texas to go through Mike Dunigan’s extensive stock because Dunigan stopped producing his fixed price lists years (1992) ago.
Yes, your opportunities for finding good Mexican coins were very limited only ten years ago.
Then the Internet, eBay, and Yahoo came into being. My how the world of collecting Mexican coins has changed since then. We now see a greater interest in Mexican coins by the giants of our hobby: Bowers, Stack’s, the Goldbergs, and finally Heritage have awakened. Nontraditional auction houses such as Doyle’s of New York, Smythe, and others are beginning to offer a smattering of nice Mexican items at public auction.
But I believe the Internet is the driving force behind all of this renewed interest in Mexican Numismatics. Everyday new items are listed for sale on websites such as eBay, Yahoo and a hundred others. Since I started looking at eBay every day, in early 2000, the number of Mexican coins offered has increased almost exponentially. In 2000 I might see 5 or 10 new items a week, now we find hundreds, if not a thousand, or more each week. While most Mexican coins listed on the Internet are common and in circulated grades, we also find great rarities and exceptional high-grade items too. At first these coins sold for insignificant prices; a Mexico City Mo 1836 ML 8 Escudo sold for under $2,000, a Guanajuato Go 1826/5 JJ 1 Real sold for only $10 in 2005, and there are at least a hundred other really rare coins sold at bargain prices that I could mention.
We now find contemporary counterfeit Mexican Republic 8 Reales selling for $50 to $100 each on eBay in late 2006, an unheard of price just a few years ago. All of the major auction houses have online hookups allowing collectors all over the world to take part in “real time” in their sales. I personally bought an extremely rare Culiacan 20 Peso for over $10,000 in one of these Internet sales in early 2006. There are still bargains to be found on the Internet, but don’t be surprised if others discover them too. Recently we have seen an increased activity in the Mexican Republic gold coins on the Internet, including a number of 20 Pesos.
But what is the “average” grade in which most collectors might expect to find the majority of Mexican Republic 20 Pesos? My guess would be a nice, evenly worn, problem free Extra Fine. But there are a few DAMs that are available only in Very Fine or lower grades! So, don’t set your collecting goals too high, or you will become very frustrated, and die an unhappy collector because you can’t finish your high-grade set.
Today’s pricing for all but the most common 20 Pesos seems out-of-whack to me. There are several “classic rarities” in this series; today’s catalogs generally list 10 to 15 DAMs without prices. However, there are many “hidden rarities” in this series that can sometimes be purchased at bargain prices in lower grades, if the few advanced 20 Peso collectors already own them.
Serous 20 Peso collectors have long known about the “classic rarities” in the series and they sold for prices that were considered extremely high in the 1980s, when and if they showed up in public auctions. A couple of good examples of this occurred in the June 1981 Superior-Miguel Munoz Sale III; (1) a specimen of the AS 1888 L 20 Peso sold for $19,000 (2) a ZS 1875 A 20 Peso sold for $20,500. Another good example occurred in the November 1985 Christie’s Norweb Sale when a ZS 1889 Z 20 Peso sold for $17,600.
Bargain 20 Pesos can still occasionally be found; one of our readers bought two extreme rarities from Culiacan in the April 2005 ANS Eliasberg Sale; he purchased a CN 1890 M for $8,625 and a CN 1895 M for $9,400. Even a blind hog, like myself, can find a “cheap” 20 Peso; I purchased a CN 1899 Q 20 Peso from the October 2001 Ponterio & Associates Sale#116 for less than a $1,000 and a GO 1885 R 20 Peso from the November 1985 Christie’s Norweb Sale for $1,320.
However, with today’s market being what it is, most of these extreme rarities probably wouldn’t be seen at public auction again unless a large collection is broken up. I believe most of the smaller groups (1-10 coins) of 20 Pesos will be sold in private treaty sales, by one of several dealers, to advanced collectors who are willing to pay substantially higher than “book” prices.
A word of caution for new 20 Pesos collectors; when an extreme rarity is offered to you at what seems like a very high price, even if the coin is low-grade, you need to consider it to be a “no-pass” coin. I mention this only because this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to purchase that one 20 Pesos that could later become the “star” of your collection.
Personally I believe the 20 Pesos are still one of the most undervalued series of Mexican Republic Period coins. The astute collector entering the market today has a great opportunity to form one the “great” collections of the future, even with the advancing prices.
There are other numismatic anomalies in the 20 Peso series, but this is only supposed to be an introduction for the series and not a complete exposé; I don’t want to bore you to death. The study and research of Mexican Numismatics always seems to produce more questions than answers, and the Mexican Republic 20 Pesos definitely has its share of mysteries. Therefore any new collector of Mexican Republic 20 Pesos has fertile ground to plow in the future because so little information has been written about this fascinating series.
MO 1870 C in silver, copper, and white metal
MO 1872 M in silver
MO 1875 B in gold
MO 1878 M “Fantasy” Pattern in copper
MO 1889 M “Fantasy” Pattern in white metal
MO 1902 M in gilded silver
CH 1884 M in gold
CN 1898 M in silver and gold
PI 1888 R in silver and gold
There are rumors of several others, but they are unpublished and unconfirmed at this time.
This creates an unusual opportunity for new collectors to fill a void in the market, especially if you seek a new challenge and can be satisfied with coins that aren’t Mint State. For those collectors who enjoy collecting truly rare to very rare large gold coins, at “bargain” prices then the Mexican Republic 20 Pesos may be a series to consider. An additional incentive for new 20 Peso collectors is that most of the advanced collectors of this series are old men; who are now beginning to dispose of their collections. And unlike other denominations of Mexican coins, we haven’t seen any recent auctions where a large number of 20 Pesos have been offered from a collection. In fact I have found only two collections of 20 Pesos numbering over 25 pieces offered at public auction since the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard was dispersed in the 1990s.
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