8 Reales 1812 Monclova Mexico - Counterfeit?

DosMundos I am in complete agreement with you that the stamp seems anomalous. The inverted presentation always bothered me. However, the basis for acceptance of the stamp as possibly real is the Pablo Gerber, Sr. Collection Part 2 sold at the Spink's America Sale of June 3, 1996 # 8350, Lot # 87. The coin sold for $990 and is listed as a "cast" Mexico City piece. I am working on that right now to try to verify all the facts. I may have a small edit in text to make.

Swamperbob:

Yep, Lot 87 is an MVA/1811 on a cast 1809 Mo 8 Reales, host coin and stamp just as they are supposed to be.

So it's not only your gut feeling, but Mathieu's and mine as well and there's still hope for us
I hope that makes up a little bit for my inability to spot the TC copper host for the fake counterstamp trials

I take it that you don't have the Gerber catalog at hand - the preceding lot 86 is an MVA/1812 on an 1817 Chihuahua 8 Reales - a very nice example of the later use of the stamp as a validation counterstamp, as I have laid it out above.

Neither the numismatic writers nor the catalogs really get this differentiation between the MVA stamp as mint mark of the Monclova mint and the same counterstamp as a later validation punch of issues produced in other mints. These validated coins are much rarer by the way, judged by auction appearances...

For the sake of completeness:
Heritage has pulled the coin from the auction.

Thanks to Swamperbob for your valuable support!

As issues of a regular and official royal Spanish mint in Chihuahua, fineness and weight should be as close to the official standards as possible. I would assume the same holds true for the Monclova casts discussed above.

Riddell shows No. 35, a Chihuahua 8 Reales, and gives a fineness of 916/1000, but notes that the assay was made from "ten Sand Dollars melted together", so we don't know if they all had come from the Chihuahua mint.

Only the cast issues of the Insurgents in the south apparently were often made from debased silver

John,
I'm definitely looking forward to this as I think there would be a chance to solve some of the mysteries surrounding these issues through XRF analysis.

Apart from the obvious use in detecting modern counterfeits...

May I ask what kind of cast coin you used for the analysis? Was it counterstamped in any way? Did it come from the Chihuahua mint or from the southern Insurgents?

Hi John - you know my opinion, but the forum members may not.

Riddell and Hort who melted at least 50,000 of these War Time hammered and cast issues per year at New Orleans did not report finding any with a significantly debased alloys.

Circulating dollars as condoned by the mint and businesses did not assay under 94 cents per coin before they were melted down for re-coining by the mints.

I have found no records from the mint regarding coins from Mexico that failed to pass muster anytime before 1825. The coins tested routinely were considered adequate for circulating as dollars in US commerce. Such was not the case for coins that were 6% under assay.

Specific gravity as a test for a bad dollar coin became a very common practice at some point before 1839. A simple balance scale accurate to 1/10th gram was accurate enough to isolate a coin with a density below circulating tolerance.

The density test was introduced into China in the 1830s and it was used in the US and Great Britain as early as 1796 by banks.

So the existence of large numbers of significantly debased copies (by this I mean 30-40% below standard) seems to be beyond the realm of possibility. The coins would have been local tokens only and would have been unacceptable in general commerce.

Think of it in example form. In 1815 a dollar was an average week's wage in the US - more in Mexico I suspect. Who in their right mind would accept a payment of 60 cents in place of a dollar. That would be a massive pay cut in terms of actual buying power. Remember that Mexican insiders (banks with connections to the leased mints) used to pull out coins as little as 1-2% overweight for salvage and refused to accept coins that were 5 cents under.

What was the market for a 60 % silver dollar?

I see the answer to that question as being the budding collector market as soon as it began to develop in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Technology to make a crude cast copy of a Chihuahua issue is relatively easy. So a cast copy of a collectible item selling for $1-2 that cost about 25 cents to make (silver value of a 60% assay in 1890) would be a GREAT profit margin.

That is why I think a detailed study of these "so called" debased but "GENUINE" coins needs to be done. I would be interested in looking at trace elements (contaminants) that are out of place in silver mined in Mexico in the 1810-1815 period. Conditions were crude but to get into the silver every element had to exist naturally in Mexican ore. There are a few elements that were first discovered in the 1900 to 1910 period that were present in some of the Class 2 coins you tested for me.

I would of course look for the rare earth electronics elements (super-conductor connections) because they would prove a VERY modern forgery after 1970. But also I would look for trace contaminants that might be missing from silver refined in the 1880s and later (gold, platinum and palladium - in very minute traces). These elements were parted effectively in 1890 but not in 1810.

I think we need to get a complete inventory of all results of XRF tests of silver coins to date and graph the trace contaminants down to as fine as they can possibly be tested - on the order to 10-20 PPM.

The elements like iridium, indium, yttrium and molybdenum are great starting points. Some of these elements are unknown in native Mexican ores so the answer to their presence can in my opinion ONLY point to some source for silver OTHER than Mexico.

I recall one element (can not recall which) that is found only in ores native to Asia which was used commercially only after 1906 primarily in furnace linings in silver refineries which was present in some of my Class 2 coins. To me that trace contaminant is absolute proof of age. If it occurs in a Chihuahua casting the coin can not be real. There was another additive that was added to silver flatware in 1936 as a tarnish preventer. I found thta one in one of nthe Class 3 Numismatic forgeries. But that element was also NEVER in silver in any form prior to 1936. The origin of the metal not in the Americas.

These are the kinds of things I would start hunting for in the Wartime issues in general. More research into ores and their components needs to be undertaken. What are natural concentrations of say iridium in Mexico and why does it seem to be in higher than appropriate percentages in some coins?

I suspect that a large percentage of these crude coins are not in fact originals but were fantasy fabrications to take advantage of a market that was buying coins faster than they could be studied - especially in the 1950s. This market once saturated with fakes started accepting the fakes as genuine and the "experts" backed up the sales with very un-scientific data. Once accepted as originals it is hard for "experts" to back track on their opinions.

Just an early stage theory on my part but one I would like to study in far more depth. There are JUST TOO MANY of these cast Chihuahua coins around to believe they could all be real. Simply makes no sense to me.

Well lets not get ahead of ourselves as I only own one piece which has the legitimate? countermarks but was examined as a debased silver alloy. BTW ... Bob - the gold level was pretty high (0.2-0.3% from memory). Still an unusual piece from the top? company in the field selling legitimate Mexican coins (Mexican Coin Company) to the public - its a low grade piece (Fine). I will be purchasing more this year but if any reader wishes to send me some for analysis let me know for a future article with Mexican Numismatic Association. Could be just an oddity ... just don't know ... this is the beginning ... makes sence Bob - they must be regal type Ag pieces ...