I’ve always found coinage from Mexico to be interesting and was thinking about adding some Mexican silver coinage to my collection. I really know very little about Mexican coins other than I like their designs. If anyone with knowledge and experience with coins of Mexico has any insight or advice on how to avoid getting burned with counterfeits, it would be much appreciated.
The fractional Mexican bullion coins have very low mintages I have a few ill image and post. You can go to the bank of mexico for mintages of all their bullion coins. I suggest the smaller bullion coins for values more than spot.
You didn't say you were looking for bullion coins, so if you want coins that actually circulated there are a lot of attractive options, like the ones I'm showing here. Most of these you shouldn't really have to worry about fakes, except the 8 reales or early pesos, but as long as you look closely you shouldn't have a problem.
I love Mexican coins, too. My local coin store has some lower denomination coppers for a few bucks, I got a 1956 50 Centavos for about five bucks. Not necessarily rare, but the Mexican seal looks so cool. I also have a couple '40s (1943 and 1945) 20 Centavos, and they have the seal and the Teotihuacan mayan temple on the reverse. The mayan civilization is quite prevalent on their coinage, which is something you don't see a lot of here in the states.
JTL et al, 30 years ago I had the good luck to be able to buy the Dansco 7220 Mexico Type book complete for $220. I systematically continued to upgrade the collection for several years until I had to sell it. 3 years ago I replaced the collection but this time it cost $700. Still having fun, once again, upgrading the set. I've found that Mexico's coins are, for the most part, beautifully designed & not terribly expensive. The problem is finding the Dansco 7220 Type book in great condition! J.T.
It's not everybody's cup of tea, but regardless of the types of coins that I purchase, the way that I avoid counterfeits is to buy them in reputable slabs. This probably isn't the best option out there, but I also became interested in Mexican coinage some years back and found this reference pretty handy: "North American Coins & Prices". It doesn't have much information in the way of history lessons and the like, but it's cheap and provides a comprehensive listing of periods, types, and varieties. I picked up the history and other interesting tidbits with web searches and so forth. I like for objects in my collections to have cool stories to go along with them (makes it more interesting to other people). This tendency caused me to be particularly drawn to Mexican Revolutionary coinage. The history and stories abound, and there are a lot of oddball coin variations with attributes that simply aren't found in other areas. For instance, the various city states were so desperate for coinage and lacking in resources that there are examples of sand-cast coins, coins made of lead, and even coins made by stamping cardboard planchets! (Not a greatest subset if you are after silver though) In the end, I abandoned pursuit of the collection because decent, slabbed examples of the coins that I wanted didn't come along often enough. Plus, I got into ancient Roman coins, and haven't looked back.
Really they can be collected however you'd like. I collect them piecemeal although I do like the caballitos VERY MUCH. Also I like the 1957-67 pesos in super high grade (I got an ms67 in a recent Heritage sale pretty cheaply and it is beautiful). I also like Libertad silvers, esp. the 5 oz and occ. 2 oz, etc.
Mexico does have some Mayan ruins but I believe all the temples on Mexican coinage are Aztec. Mexico City is built on the ruins of the Aztec capital.
This may seem a bit simplistic but here it goes: if an Ebay seller located in China or a flea market vendor offers up a "complete set of silver pesos" from the late 1800s and early 1900s at a crazily affordable price, think twice!
Pre-1930's Mexican coinage in unc. grades is on fire right now. Mexican coinage can be beautiful and you can find some gorgeous pieces relatively reasonably if you consider circulated pieces. If you want something beautifully designed, look at the Caballito peso (1910-1914) or the 1921 Mexican Silver 2 Peso. Here are a couple of my Mexican pieces:
Got this 5 peso 1948 2 weeks ago for $18. 0.8681 ASW. 90% silver 40mm. The LCS thought it is AU, but if it is it would be AU58...about $17.00 at melt right now.
Only have a few This is marked Almost Uncirculated by a dealer who passed away I got it from the foreign junk box at my Florida LCS
