Found this poor thing in the wife's junk drawer. Her former in-laws travelled alot and kept change as souvenirs (I guess). I got interested when I read it contained silver, then I found out it's 10% silver, 90% brass. Still, at 1.6g, melt is a dollar Plus, I learned who Jose Morelos was, so that was good.
I like those. I grew up in my grandmothers house in El Paso and she routinely crossed the border to shop. She gave me some of these back in the early sixties. In my kid brain the were Mexican dollars and accompanied her on one of her shopping excursions to spend my Mexican dollars.... That was my very first lesson in exchange rates!
My neighbor showed me some tokens he had yesterday He was excited when told it was a coin. Not excited so much that it was 10%
I was really surprised to see so much luster left on the coin when he showed it to me. I think I paid $3 for it.
I grew up in the Los Angeles area in the 40s and 50s and my grandfather had a couple of cigar boxes full of Mexican coins. Every time he returned from a trip to Tijuana (I don't have a clue why he went there.) he would throw his change in the box. We children would play with them often. Not sure what happened to them over the years, but I still have a few.
I have often wondered about how this coin was made. The Brits used to blanche (acid bath) the 0.500 planchets for the debased silver coinage beginning in 1920. This selectively leached copper from the surface layers so that when first struck the coin appeared to be of better silver. Then as the coin wore, it would often take on yellow, light brownish (ugly), and even somewhat greenish tinge on occasion. This coin has got to have greater surface silver content somehow, but nobody has explained it to me. It must be pickled or blanched I would have to guess somehow as plating does not work out too well or evenly on massive batches. I always thought the Mexicans were trying to hold on to their old silver peso even if in VERY debased form... I have a 1957 in MS67 PCGS and it is breathtaking. But doesn't add up to a gem Caballito! LOL.
I have seen one of these cut in half. The core looks like brass or copper and the out side layer is silver layer too thick to be just plated.
I think your idea of it being "pickled" like the debased Roman coinage is probably right. If they pickled the planchettes before striking, the increased silver in the top layer of the coin might strike up nice and silvery.
