1908 Mexican Peso

Cheers, I will wait and see if he does come by.

The Strong Peso does NOT have dragon's teeth. These coins are a three die strike so it is a far more difficult to forge this coin than the older 8R was. The dragon's teeth are only seen on the 8Rs.

The coin is real and as noted common. However, the number of survivors of the 1908 Strong Peso is much lower than most US Morgan dollars. It is called the Strong Peso because of the higher amount of silver it contained. By 1919 the peso had been reduced in silver content and these Strong Pesos were melted wholesale. Most of the surviving copies were actually pesos exported outside of Mexico.

So while it may appear to be just a bullion item at this time - I would NOT melt it. If the series ever becomes popular there will not be enough supply to meet demand.

But if you are looking at investment potential in the short run then treat it like a VF 1921 Morgan dollar.

Next question for everone: Why are books on this topic "The Strong or Hard Peso" so darn expensive?

The books are expensive because most were published in VERY SMALL numbers. The reason is simple - very few collectors. Mexican issues are getting slightly more popular but no one is burning up the presses cranking out Mexican coin reference books - YET.

Where do I get my information? The short almost glib answer would be "from a lifetime of collecting and reading". There is unfortunately no one place where you can find all of the facts you want in one place. That would be am exceptionally costly book to produce.

I am right now - working on disposing of a large Numismatic Library that includes 10s of thousands of books, catalogs and pamphlets. Literally over 2 tons of them. If I read them all and IF I retained what I read - I would likely be as much of an expert in Colonial Connecticut coppers as George Perkins was. Expertise is gradually acquired. But there is a general fallacy in the world of numismatics - that everything is written down someplace in a publicly available forum. That is simply NOT the truth in all cases. I now have in hand a dozen notebooks full of data on Connecticut coppers that exists NO WHERE ELSE ON EARTH in a consolidated format. It would be great to put that into the Public Domain. But who can do it and how?

My Library is rather similar but larger than George's. How could that be put forth?

As informed numismatists, we all need to learn and spread useful facts. This needs (in my opinion) to be more than just values and rates of return. Collectors tend to focus primarily on the coins themselves, but expertise comes from studying everything from mining the metals - to manufacturing the coins - to how they flow in the economic structure.

To address the specifics of this answer, personally, I also study allied fields of economics and monetary supply with a focus on intrinsic money issues and History. This provides the general "reason" for why intrinsic silver supplies vary from glut to scarcity as world silver prices rise and fall. It also can be used to explain why some technically common coins with high mintage's seem to be HARD to find.

Some of the conclusions, such as the melting of overweight intrinsic coins (like the Strong Peso) is simply a matter of adding 2 plus 2. Heavier than face value coins always have faced the melting pot since the effect was first described in the 1790s in England. When economic times are hard the highest grades of silver coins vanish first from circulation leaving older worn coins to be used day to day. In the 1790s in England old hammered silver coins 200 or more years old and terribly worn still circulated at face value or near face.

In the US during the Hard Times of the 1830s silver vanished and private token coinages dominated.

Every time the base amount of silver changed the old coins disappeared. Just recall the time period from 1965 - 1970 and the rapid depletion of silver from the circulating coin supply.

So KEEP LEARNING - do not focus too narrowly on one field - try to broaden your knowledge base. The more you know the more you appreciate the coins themselves and the less likely you will be stuck with a bad investment.