San Francisco Mexico Peso 1949 Restrikes for the Republic of China - New information

During the summer of 1949 the San Francisco and Mexico City Mints struck 10,250,000 copies of the 1898 Mexico peso for the China Nationalist government to pay soldiers fighting the Communists.

In 2025 some new information on these unusual coins has appeared after the current owners of an El Paso, Texas house found some papers which belonged to previous owner, L. W. Hoffecker, a prominent Texas numismatist.


Mexico 1898 peso (1949 restrike)
Silver, 39 mm, 27.03 gm
Obverse: "Liberty Cap" and rays
Reverse: Eagle on cactus holding serpent in beak

In 1949 the American Numismatic Association (ANA) held it's annual convention in San Francisco from August 21 to 24, 1949.

During the convention some members were given tours of the San Francisco Mint where they watched coins being struck, including silver dollars.

The attendees, mostly being numismatists knowledgeable about United States coins, knew that the United States wasn't making silver dollars then. Some recognized the design on the coins of an eagle sitting on cactus holding a snake as the national emblem of Mexico.

Dr. Alberto Francisco Pradeau, an American top expert on Mexican numismatics, was on one of the tours and when he returned from the convention he started researched the pesos and the reasons for them being struck. He published an article on the coins titled "The San Francisco, California, Mexican Pesos of 1898", for the Azteca Numismatic Society's newsletter Plus Ultra in 1968.

New information:

Lyman William Hoffecker (1868-1955) also known as L. W. Hoffecker, was a prominent Texas numismatist who lived in El Paso, Texas. He joined the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and later served on the ANA board and as ANA president from 1939 to 1941. He is most well known for designing and promoting the Old Spanish Trail Commemorative Half Dollar minted in 1935.

In August of 1949 he attended the ANA convention in San Francisco and joined one of the tours of the San Francisco Mint. He watched the Mexican pesos being struck and met a mint official who showed him one.

Texas numismatist Jason Elwell published a series of articles about L. W. Hoffecker in the Texas Numismatic Association's TNA News starting in late 2025. The current owners of Hoffecker's house had found some of Hoffecker's papers and gave them to Mr. Elwell. The articles are titled "Go tell it on the Franklin Mountains - L. W. Hoffecker is Reborn!"

Texas Numismatic Association L. W. Hoffecker articles:
https://texasnumismatics.org/hoffecker

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society newsletter "E-Sylum" has several articles on L. W. Hoffecker including this one which mentions the Texas articles.
https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n38.html

L. W. Hoffecker wrote an article about his visit to the San Francisco Mint and the Mexican pesos and sent it to the ANA for publication in their magazine The Numismatist.

He claimed that the San Francisco Mint's director showed him an Mexican coin dated 1898 and told him that Mexico had sent him dies for the 1897 eight reales coins.

A mint worker told him that people at the mint had modified the dies to change the date to 1898. He also claimed that a mint official told him that 6,000,000 coins were minted.

The ANA never published L. W. Hoffecker's article and he blamed fellow numismatist Dr. Pradeau for the ANA's rejection.

Jason Elwell speculates that possibly some of the San Francisco pesos left the mint quietly and cited a previous San Francisco Mint theft where a 1901 mint official walked off with 1,500 double eagles ($20 gold coins).