(1117) Let’s Talk About Minors: Volume 3 Issue 11: Last Revision: 03/29/08

Mexican Republic 1 Real Grade Rarity

By Bill Sigl

Summary

The Mexican Republic 1 Real series is much more difficult to collect than most people  think.  If you walk away from this having learned only 1 thing it should be: This series is far rarer than generally thought. 

I estimate that the total number of coins that exist today in Good condition thru Uncirculated condition in this series is probably no more than 90,000 worldwide, and  none of these DAMs have any more than 2,500 coins in existence.  This is a RARE series.

Collecting Mexican Republic 1 Real coins is a very challenging goal.  For almost 5 years I have spent time each night scouring the world for 1 reales, and yet there are 31 DAMs (Date, Assayer, Mint combinations) that I have never seen offered during that time.  Thus, if you are unconcerned with the grades of the coins in your collection, you will likely spend the rest of your life trying to complete it. 

Let’s define a Grade Conscious Collector as a person who upgrades their collection in an attempt to ultimately get each coin in XF to BU condition.  Let’s define Grade Rarity as the proportion of existing coins in a series that are in grades of XF to BU.

Using the above definitions, I will rate the grade rarity of the 1 Real series relative to other series in terms of Grade Rarity.  These series are listed from most difficult to least difficult:

It is not possible to assemble a collection of 1 Reales in BU that is very extensive.  Therefore, in order to avoid false expectations and frustration, please do not set that as your primary goal.  Even for the very wealthy, such a collection would take a lifetime to assemble, cost a lot of money, and in the end it would have so many holes that it would not even be a very impressive collection. 

Keep in mind that even when a high-grade example is found, it often will have hairline scratches, or other telltale reminders of a former cleaning.  Collectors in the past were so fond of cleaning their 1 Reales that they would shine up truly gem quality coins just to remove toning, or minor debris.   If you  refuse to purchase high-grade coins with ‘hairlines’, you will only be enriching your fellow collectors who will then have a chance to profit from purchasing the gems that you foolishly let slip from your grasp.

My Advice:

1. Set reasonable collecting goals for your 1 Real collection.

2. Recognize grade rarities when you see them in the 1 Real series.

3. Do not pass up the opportunity to buy high-grade examples of 1 Real coins when you see them.

4. Do not pass up purchase of a high grade 1 Real coin because it has ‘hairline’ scratches.

Rarity of the series

For the past 4.5 years I have been conducting a population survey of Mexican Republic 1 Real coins.  My survey covered coins offered on EBAY and other Internet auctions, coin shows, dealer web sites, auction catalogs, offerings from fellow collectors, and ads in coin publications.  During this time I have catalogued only about 1,600 separate 1 real coins offered for sale.  I spent much time trying to identify instances where the same coin was offered more than 1 time during this span of years.

Estimate of World 1 Real Population:

I admit that my survey effort was not perfect.  Nobody can track all sales worldwide.  Let’s make an assumption that I only knew about 20% of the worldwide sales during that period.  That would make the number of coins sold in 4.5 years at 1,600 x 5 = 8,000. 

A very liberal assumption would be that the average coin is sold once every 30 to 50 years. 

Using these 2 assumptions, we can calculate estimates for the total surviving world population of such coins.

Based on these assumptions, I can say that the odds are extremely high that there are no more than 90,000 coins in the Mexican Republic 1 real series in existence worldwide.  The odds are also very likely that the number could be a lot less.

Stop and think about that estimate for a moment.  The Denver Mint produces more coins in the US State Quarter series in 30 minutes than exist today for the entire 1 real series!

Estimated Annual Sales per Common DAM:

A quick count of my spreadsheet identifies about 231 DAMs in the 1 Real series.  In reality there are probably more since my data does not show all DAMs where only a few are known.  Of the 231 DAMs, I have determined 35 to be the most common in the series.  These 35 DAMs account for about 40% of the observed sales.  If you think about this number, it tells me that there are not really any truly ‘common’ 1 real coins.  The calculation below illustrates that even the common coins have very few annual sales.

This rough estimate illustrates the point that the 1 real series is sufficiently rare that collectors have to be diligent in order to even be able to purchase even the most common DAMs.  My population survey findings prove to me that even the most common of the Republic 1 Real DAMs are rare by modern standards.  I cannot think of a single DAM where more than 2,500 coins would exist.

Of the 231 or more DAMs, I have never seen even 1 sale for 31 of them in 4.5 years.  There are many more RARE dates than the price catalogs indicate.  If you are a slave to the price catalogs, you will never get an opportunity to purchase the hidden rarities in the series.

For most of the remaining DAMs, I have observed 1 or fewer coins put up for sale each year.  I would classify them as SCARCE to VERY SCARCE.  My estimate is that most of the 1 Real DAMs have 200 or fewer examples in existence worldwide.

The data in my population survey supports the statement made in the Summary that regardless of grade, collecting the Republic 1 Real series is a very challenging task. 

My Advice:

‘NEVER PASS UP THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE A 1 REAL COIN AT A REASONABLE PRICE IF YOU NEED IT FOR YOUR COLLECTION………

THEY ARE ALL RARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grade Rarity of the series

Surprisingly few coins in the Republic 1 Real series are offered for sale that are in extra fine to uncirculated condition.  High-grade 1 real coins are VERY RARE.  Less than 8% of the total population offered for sale was XF or better.

The breakdown is as follows:

Let’s discuss a few other points, and you will be even more convinced of the rarity of high-grade 1 Real coins. 

1. There is less of an incentive to offer Low priced coins on the Internet, coin shows, magazine ads, or auctions than higher priced coins. 

2. The low priced coins have a tendency to sit around gathering dust because it is not as financially rewarding to the owner to spend time trying to individually sell them.  Time is money, and more effort will be spent to sell high priced items.

These points combined will tend to indicate that when doing population surveys, you could be seeing a higher proportion of the expensive coins offered for sale than actually exist in the population.

Another consideration needs to be discussed in order for you to REALLY appreciate the rarity of high-grade 1 Real coins.  Almost every Mexican Republic coin has been cleaned in the past, especially the high-grade coins. Mexican collectors in ages past just LOVED to clean their coins, even the XF, AU, and Unc coins.  It seems that they did their cleaning with toothbrushes, wire brushes, and cloths covered with jewelry polish.  Almost every high grade 1 Real coin shows signs of prior cleaning, which are often described as ‘hairlines’ by the seller.   Beware that toning (often acquired from years in old coin envelopes) will often make hairlines from prior cleaning difficult to detect.

My Advice:

1. If you ever are offered a high grade 1 Real coin without evidence of a prior cleaning, you would be a foolish collector if you did not quickly purchase it and place it in a prized location in your Mexican Republic collection.

2. Do not get overly concerned with remnant evidence of prior cleaning, as long as the coin is still pleasing in appearance.  Any sophisticated collector that passes up coins with ‘hairlines’ will have a nearly empty collection of high grade Republic 1 Reales.

Hoard Dates Identified

There is only 1 DAM in the series that can be classified as a hoard date, the 1838 Go PJ.  A number of Bu examples of that DAM were found in the 1960’s with the hoard of 1838 Go PJ 2 reales, but the 1 Reales were not nearly as common in high grade as are the 2 reales.  Unfortunately, almost every example of this date that I have seen shows evidence of harsh cleaning.

There also appears to have been a hoard of 1 Reales in the 1825 thru 1827 period from Mexico City that must have been found at some time in the past. 

I suspect that there was a hoard of 1868 Go YF coins in high grade that is still being disbursed, as I have seen several of these in the past year.

I chose an arbitrary cutoff point to illustrate the rarity of high-grade 1 Real coins.  I have listed below the DAMs that have had 4 or more sales in the past 4.5 years in XF to Unc condition.

Of the 20 coins in Unc that have been sold, over half of them were from the above dates.

I have also heard that the 1855 Mo GF is available in BU, but I have not seen one offered in that condition in the past 4.5 years.

Keep This in Perspective:

It is important to keep this all in perspective.  As my daughter says ...’KEEP IT REAL’.

Do not start collecting 1 Real coins with the expectation of getting rich.  I think it is so sad to see collectors whose only motivation is monetary appreciation.  There is no guarantee that these coins will ever skyrocket in price.  After all, these coins were made 175 years ago to 140 years ago, and you can still purchase a common low-grade example for under $10.  They may go up in price in the future, but one thing is for sure…they sure will never go down in price. 

If your motivation for collecting is ‘The Thrill of The Hunt’, you will never be disappointed with your 1 real collecting experience.  The hunt will never end.

Compared to many collectors of Mexican Republic coins, I am poor and live a very modest life.  Yet, with the current prices of this series I can afford to collect some really RARE coins.  At least for the moment, while collecting these coins, I can feel like a rich man.   You Can TOO  

COME and JOIN  the FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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