Learned a new word today while reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: "tlaco." It's a Spanish loan-word from Nahuatl meaning "one half" which refers to a 1/8 real copper coin. So here's a 1/8 real from Durango province, 1824, not so long after independence from Spain. I read that many of these were contemporary counterfeits stamped over 1/8 real coppers from Nueva Viscaya province in the Empire of Iturbide, which collapsed in 1823. I guess the coppers from that regime lost their ability to circulate freely with the end of the Empire, as copper coins circulated at above their metal value. Contemporary counterfeiters just restruck them with the successor province and hoped for the best.
That is very interesting - it's been a while since I read Blood Meridian, but I recall McCarthy mentioned coins but not this one specifically - I remember being impressed that he described the money as being such a mixed bag of foreign and domestic coins, as it was in the 1840s. Now I want to reread it. As for the coin, I have only one 1/8 real, from a local dealer's junk bin:
