Mohur I agree with
TwoKopeiki that Resplandores is THE book - however it is costly $100 or more and it is for more advanced collectors and collectors of the earlier dates. So it's value to you will depend on how far and how fast you want to go.
You can be fairly safe when buying coins from the second Republic (dated after 1867) and even more safe when dealing with the dates made from Standardized dies made in Mexico City (about 1887 onward). These coins were not extensively counterfeited and so far the Chinese have not targeted the group for extensive forgery. Dates to watch for bad fakes are 1882, 1884, 1893 and 1895.
It really depends on what you want to collect. Take some time and look at your options. In the UK, these coins were not used to a great extent. The Portrait colonials were but not Cap and Ray types. I suspect they were imported into the UK but to serve as raw bullion.
There are many ways to collect this series.
Some people want one of each mint - 14 coins not too hard to assemble (couple tougher mints are in there).
Some collectors want one of the First or Last dates (or both from each mint - harder especially when it comes to first dates.
I know of a couple collectors who are doing the eagle varieties. There are quite a few different eagles used. The Sonora eagle is arguably the hardest type - BUT very pretty.
Then there is the one of every date approach which is very easily done as long as you do not worry about the mints involved.
The one of each date and mint is far harder - next to impossible because of the couple unique issues known.
The one of each date, mint and assayer combination is a collection of well over 1400 coins and to my knowledge has never been successfully completed even by Col. Parker (he never owned an 1835 Ho).
You could always shoot for the moon any try to assemble the entire set shown in Resplandores with all of the die varieties listed - also never accomplished - provided you have a few million dollars to spend.
I know of quite a few people trying to assemble every assayer combination ever used including the well known errors. Hard to do but basically not impossible.
Then there are the guys who focus more narrowly on one specific type, like Durango from 1825-1830.
Or even more narrowly all of the dies used in one year like 1835 Zacatecas - which has several hundred die pairs.
I know of many collectors who spend time on one small area and then change focus when they tire of that area. I have done for example wear studies trying to assemble a complete weight set of low grade 8Rs to see how the design wears off.
So I think you get the point - there are as many ways as collectors to assemble a set. Make it fun however.
Personally, my long term goal has been to assemble as complete as possible a set of the Contemporary Counterfeit copies of the Cap and Ray 8R group. I started with the 292 varieties listed in J.L.Riddell's 1845 book "Monograph of the Silver Dollar, Good and Bad" and in 50 years of collecting I am almost half done. Perhaps in another 60 or 70 years I can complete the set.
But after a few years, I realized Riddell did not catch all of them. He missed many types - so now I have a very open set to collect since I never know when the next UNIQUE forgery will pop-up.
Posted 07/08/2011 11:40 pm
