Cast 8 Reales ?

The coinage and what kind of species we see being developed from Mexico's struggle with Spain is similar to the U.S. Colonial coinage State Copper series during our post-Revolutionary War period (c.1786-1790) with Britain - the only difference is silver instead of copper in most cases as with these cast overstrikes sort of like a New Jersey Copper Maris 56-n overstrike on a Connecticut copper due to a lack of good copper planchets ... specifically - in one case its a lack of good machinery and thieves in the hills in the U.S. case its a lack of these good copper planchets ... I consider Pradeau like Walter Breen ... in many cases he was right but in some cases some advancement or a slight change in direction may be required to the current gospel word ... lets see what happens with more pieces?

John Lorenzo
United States

Colonialjohn,

I think that there is some big misunderstanding and even lack of logic to the supposedly historical data of when the "T" and "pillars" punches were applied to the Chihuahua casts.

Ortíz says that they started in 1815 (this is the text from his book the Cayón auction catalog refers to). But at that time, regular dies were already available, so instead of countermarking the old casts with the two punches, they would just have overstruck them. Which they actually did.

In my opinion, the "T" and "pillars" punches were applied to the cast coins right away, that is, from 1811 on, right upon issuance of the coins, and not at a later date, as Ortiz says. Obviously (and that is what might have happened to Mathieu's coin from the Cayón auction) a counterfeiting operation would also be able to fake two small punches - just like Swamperbob mentioned above. Maybe that's why the "T" is so fat and the "pillars" so detailed.

And maybe that's what the populace was complaining about - that counterfeits appeared, not of cast coins but of cast coins WITH these punches.

Which would lead to two types of coins: good ones with punches and edge design, and bad ones with punches but without edge design (implying that the mint was able to put an edge design on their coins but the counterfeiters not).

By the way, as far as I understand from what I have been told about Pradeau and Breen, there is one big difference between these two numismatic personalities:
Pradeau at times was led to errors by misinterpreting historical data, but unlike Breen he was not filling holes between bits of data by passing speculation as hard facts.

But all in all, Pradeau is only a starting point for the War for Independence series, and by no means a bible.

I viewed the ANS Collection yesterday on the War of Independence Issues. Will report in paper to MNA further observations ...

I've just sorted that coin back to its place (and updated it's documentation - thanks a lot Colonialjohn) - and noticed I had another one with a smooth edge.
It's a 1811 Zacatecas - not the common type though but the "Moneta provisional" one - which may be a good reason for that coin to have a smooth edge (as for the LVO one) :

Swamperbob : you forgot the Potosi scandal ;)
Like this one for example (Felipe IV, 1650, essayer O with dot inside, devaluated fo 7,5 reales with the crown counterstamp) :



The stuff with SG - the reason why I didn't do it yet - is that I don't have an accurate scale ... I need to get a good one for myself (I went for a cheap Chinese numeric scale - which is not accurate enough).

That edge issue is very interesting, but from your sample if I understood everything, one was tooled / filled (so it may have had a proper edge prior to this)
Do you have other "plain edge" samples for this type ?

Tell me if you need mine for your next article colonialjohn :) (as well as anything else actually)
The early design is also interesting (flower / lion - I have the later one except for a 2 reales), if you have that, in order to see if the first coins evolved in composition quality.

I hope you did a picture of that edge ;)
Do you have some new informations for this upcoming paper ?

I sent the research paper to the Mexican Numismatic Assocation. We shall see ... we should only see plain edge types during 1811 from my research that the circle/square (regal) edge was added as a lapsed anti-counterfeiting measure for this series - possibly? I have confirmed almost exact Ag/Pt/Au % levels between 1811 regal edge and plain edge pieces. Additionally - it may be based on my theory that any 1812 which is plain edge is an immediate PROBLEM - I own (four) 1812's - all are like yours - regal edge - keep me posted on ANY 1811 Plain Edge types - these would be VERY VALUABLE to XRF analyze to support my conclusions - MOVING FORWARD. The larger the data base the more accurate this assumption ... if we do see just ONE 1812 PLAIN EDGE we need to examine the piece to see if it has good Ag/Pt/Au lvels. To see an 1812 PLAIN EDGE Chihuahua cast with good Ag/Pt/Au % levels piece is hopefully an IMPOSSIBILITY ... follow my thinking <BG>.

John Lorenzo
United States