This coin lists in Krause for $2.50 in Good, $5.00 in Very Good, $8.00 in Fine, and $20.00 in Very Fine. Krause doesn't give values for any Mexican state issues in conditions higher than Very Fine, which makes me suspect that they are uncommon in better condition.
Other than Zacatecas, the other Mexican states that issued their own coinage were Jalisco, Durango, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa, Occidente, and Nueva Vizcaya.
Minting base-metal coins was a profitable activity for the state governments. They therefore coined all that the market would bear. The Federal government minted even more - over one hundred and fifty million Federal copper pieces for a nation of only about seven million inhabitants. The Mexican Republic ended up flooded with enormous numbers of copper coins of varying designs and sizes, including masses of counterfeits.
Finally, the coinage of copper was prohibited entirely in 1837, and all the copper in circulation (except the brass of Zacatecas) was devalued by half. The cessation of state-issued copper was only temporary, however. Eventually, the states re-started production of copper coins - it was just too profitable to resist.
Posted 11/11/2009 12:57 am
