Durango 1827 8 Reales "Cap & Ray" Heavier Than Usual

RealPeso Very nice coin!

The early issues from Durango have the widest range of permissable weights of any of the branch mints. They have the second widest permissable variation in diameter (second to Chihuahua).

The earliest Durango varieties were also videly variable in design because Durango used the smallest punch elements of any of the branch mints. Even the eagles were composed of as many as 7 different die punches that had to be set into each working die just to form the eagle. Many of the branch mints had made the conversion to King punches by 1827 and Guanajuato was using hubs by 1830.

So at Durango you are dealing with dies that are made differently and a mint that operated to different standards.

Dave O'Harrow did a study of weights of the Hookneck 8Rs made at Durango and has a 28.1 gram original. His lowest weight original was 25.6 grams. So although there was a "standard" weight Durango was abismal at maintaining the standard.

Of course, there is a story relating to why that happened. The way I have heard it was that when the coins were finally weighed that the light weight ones were used to pay the coiners and the other mint workers. They got stuck with the worst coins they made and it shorted their meager pay. That is an early form of quality control which may have in part contributed to the coins getting heavier. But in any even the story goes on to say that the overweight coins were sold at face value to certain "special" interests who profited from the excess silver. The story sounds true and I have encountered it many places so it appears to be authentic.

How quickly the problems were corrected at Durango is anyone's guess, but in my experience the range of weights closed considerably so that by 1827 I would say your coin at 27.5 grams is in the top 10 percent heaviest by weight. I always look at surviving heavy coins closely because most overweight coins faced being melted.

Remember when silver weight was treated as cash - overweight silver coins were melted to convert their actual value.

In any event a wider than typically allowable range is OK for very early Durango. Provided the coin is real.

The edge damage you refer to may in fact not be post strike damage at all. Look carefully at the area and see how the design intersects with the damage. Durango (in fact all the branch mints) rolled their own silver stock from small ingots. At times, the rolled sheets were barely wider than the planchets they had to produce so ragged tears along the edges of the sheet do occur and I have seen them opposite one another. I strongly suspect that you may have PRE-STRIKE planchet damage based on the way it looks to me.

The eagle on your coin looks like it was made from the older set of die punches used in 1826. Very nice distinctive bird. That bird was copied closely by a group of successful forgers - so whenever I see it I look much closer hoping to discover a new Riddell relative.

Also note the "Durango Tilt" seen on the upper rays of your coin. Many of the rays on early Durango coins tilt to the right. This is seen in the years 1826-1828 with most 1827 dies showing the tilt. This abnoramity (which I attribute to an individual die sinker - perhaps he was cross-eyed ) was even noticed by the early forgers who copied that feature (only in a slightly exaggerated form) onto two of the dies recorded in Riddell's book (see Riddell #350 and 351). Those coins are both dated 1826 but Riddell notes the existance of an 1827 version as well. Today my population studies of the Riddell counterfeits indicates that the dates are about evenly divided among the three counterfeit versions with the 1827 date counterfeits being the most common by a narrow margin.

But your coin is NOT a Riddell counterfeit. It is in my opinion real. I think that is too bad - but you may have a different thought on the matter.

A nice mexico Durango 8r, a little bit overweight than normal standard.
Pretty good.

Thanks swamperbob! I definitely use Riddell before buying cap & rays, I also need to get my hands on the "Resplandores" book.

A copy of "Resplandores" just went up on ebay and all I can say is WOW! The asking price on Buy it now is $397.00. I thought Resplandores usually sold in the $100.00 to $125.00 range but not that high! Whew! Looks like I just have to keep on searching for a better deal.

RealPeso Have you checked with Mike Dunigan's office in Fort Worth? I was there in November and he has a listed number. Last I knew he still had copies available for $125.

Thank you jfransch and swamperbob!! That is the best idea ever! Instead of waiting around on ebay for ever waiting for Resplandores to show up as a regular auction, I can purchase it directly from Mike Dunigan.

Hey jfransch, Thank you for the offer! I actually just googled USMexNA and went to their website, then brought up a copy of the sample newsletter and lo & behold the ad and phone number was there!

Thank you!

RealPeso I understand your confusion. At times, I share in it.

The early Durango coins are very complex. Perhaps the most complex short series of the entire production run for any mint. That is because of the number of DIFFERENT eagle punches employed each year. There are at the VERY minimum three different eagle punches used and depending on who you talk to there could be as many as 7. Complicating the issue are the number of very well made counterfeits that use essentially correct die punches or dies during this same time frame.

The problem in my opinion may come down to one of semantics.

What do you call a FRAUD MADE BY THE MINT? Where do you draw the line between that and a COUNTERFEIT?

There is a great likelihood that during 1826 and 1827 FRAUDULENT coins may have been made in the Durango mint itself. This may have occurred with or without the help of dies borrowed from the mint. It may have been sanctioned behaviour by mint officials or it may have been criminal infiltration. I say this because I have examined coins from both dates that simply are not 903 fine silver - not even close.

How are we to classify these coins? Can a coin be real if it has 60%, 70%, 80% or 90% of the correct amount of silver? Who draws the line and where exactly do you draw it if the SAME DIES were used?

Debased Originals is the normal name given by Riddell when describing 8Rs that he suspected were made using genuine dies with less than the correct amount of silver. He reports only those with less than 70% of the appropriate silver content. Higher silver contents are NOT REPORTED in his book. This class of coins was produced someplace with an alloy that was short on silver. It did happen. But no one knows for sure how often or when. Moreover, the nature of intent gets involved. Was it shoddy work or fraud? But to claim that you have a Debased Original (a mint made fraud) you have to be certain that the production came from the mint and that the coin was released through normal channels.

On the debased coins I have personally examined the edge design is never quite perfect. On most cases, it wanders side to side as if the edger did not have a retaining lip along the edge. I see that as a clue that the debased coins were somehow "different". However, there could have been an edger with no lip at Durango that operated along side the edger that produced the "normal" edge. No one knows for sure but it is possible. I am hopeful that the edge wobble will track one for one with the debased versions providing a quick method of isolation. But until I have tested more originals and fakes and correlated the edge appearance - it is not 100% certain.

The second case I envision asks, could a mint worker have smuggled in debased planchets made outside the mint and simply swapped them out? Perhaps. These would not be quite the same as debased originals since the fraud was not sanctioned. But they would be called Debased Originals as well. I see it more likely that an off-site planchet production facility would have poor equipment resulting in the tell-tale wobble.

The third case would involve dies getting out of the mint and falling into the hands of criminals. Did it happen? Yes, there is absolute proof in several cases but that information was NOT reported widely. Imagine the financial implications if it caused a panic. No one would want to take coins from the offending mint.

But coins made outside the mint are COUNTERFEIT regardless of the picture on the coin and if they use Genuine Dies. Once in circulation this class can not be distinguished from the first and second classes unless the forger does something differently when he makes the coins. Each step in the process leaves clues so a WRONG edge could prove a forgery made outside the mint. An incorrectly prepared planchet is also a clue. The most well known case of this happening involved the sale of old dies to a scrap man. The dies were NOT DEFACED first. The scrap man re-sold the dies to forgers and you get nearly perfect fakes. Except they lack the correct amount of silver.

A fourth case involves the theft or use of die hubs or punch elements by people who are NOT authorized to have them. Did this happen? Yes very likely according to Riddell. Here you get dies with some of the elements RIGHT while other elements are WRONG. There is one case where the counterfeiter used the real eagle punch but had no letter-set. So he engraved the letters onto the die by hand.

I suspect that all 4 cases described above happened or could have happened in 1826 and 1827 in Durango. That mint did have well documented troubles in this regard.

So what do you need to do with Durango issues as far as classifying them?

First accept the fact from the outset that no one solution will please everyone.

I usually classify Debased Coins as Counterfeits end of story. I do this because regardless of who made them they were frauds. They were not worth the stated amount.

However, many collectors for good reasons of their own see them as real. They were made in the mint after all. Some will at best make a notation that the coin is debased. But many don't care! To this group of collectors the coins are just real.

But this gives a validity to some of the better made Counterfeits that they otherwise would not have and people end up in situations like this - not knowing what to believe about a coin.

The only absolutely factual test you can perform is one that establishes if the coin contained the correct amount of silver. On that fact - I rest.