Waffled Or Cancelled 1868 2 1/2 Centimos? Did They Do That Back Then?

As far as I know, "waffling" is a modern practice, and a result of modern concepts of how a mint operates.

Back when this coin was made, the Mint did everything itself, nothing was outsourced; the melting down of old, worn out coins was done at the mint itself, so there was no need to specifically mark worn or obsolete coins for destruction when it was all done in-house, with very minimal chance of a condemned coin escaping back out into circulation.

These days, the recycling of old worn out coinage is outsourced to private scrap metal merchants. There is therefore a need to deliberately deface coins sold to the metal recyclers at scrap value, otherwise the recyclers could simply hand the coins back in at the bank for full face value at a tidy profit, and the Mint would have to try to recycle them all over again, at their cost. Waffling marks the coins as having been sold as scrap; waffled coins are no longer legal tender and can not be returned to circulation via the banks.