The FoxLair
Dynamic Mexican Republic Numbering System©
Last Revision: 04/10/04
Many people wonder why we have proposed a New Mexican Coin numbering system? They generally ask the following questions:
· Don’t the old numbering systems work properly?
· Why should this Mexican Republican Unified Numbering System be important?
· What will it do to further Mexican Numismatics?
· What items are defined that should be numbered differently within the system?
Numismatic Numbering System Overview
Today there are many numbering systems in the many different fields of numismatics. It seems most collectors, dealers and numismatists need a quick reference number to enable them to communicate with each other about an exact coin or variety efficiently and correctly. Most numbering systems come about when the first author creates a work about a particular series of coins. In their first monographs or books, these new authors generally start using their own invented numbering system, which then becomes the standard for that series for some length of time even though other coin series do not share it.
Then along comes another researcher or author, sometimes many years later, with new material on that particular series of coins. Normally this newly crowned expert will have discovered previously un-cataloged coin varieties consisting of design changes, OverDates, die blunders and sometimes even new Date or Mint coins rendering the first numbering system unusable or obsolete, because it is impossible to fit these newly discovered coins into the proper sequence of the old system. This has happened numerous times with U.S. coins, in the large cents, half cents, etc, and causes problems for the current collectors who have cataloged their coins by the first system and now have to reclassify all of their coins or carry two, or sometimes three different numbers, for the different systems. Communications between the collectors then becomes very difficult, unless all convert and conform to the new standard, which rarely happens.
This problem is even more acute and confusing in Mexican numismatics because of the many different assayers and mintmarks that were used during the Republican Period. It becomes even more trying when you consider the difference between the Real/Escudo coinage and the later Decimal coinage, as most decimal coinage has a single assayer’s initial while the earlier coinage has two or sometimes even three assayer’s initials. And when you begin examining other types of varieties the task can become totally overwhelming. Let me give you some examples:
Example #1: The 1824 Mexico City 8 Reales- there are Hookneck Type coins and Facing Eagle Type, major design changes, but the DAM is the same, however each needs a different number in any system.
Example #2: The 1857 Durango 8 Escudos- this date has both the old Paris Style Dies and the new Mexican Style Dies of 1857; major design changes, but the DAM is the same, but each needs a different number in any system.
Example #3: The 1898 Guanajuato 1 Peso- this date 1 Gold Peso has the regular Mexican Peso Eagle, but also one variety with the 5 Centavo; a Major Design Change, but the DAM remains the same, and each needs a different number in any system.
Example #4: The 1859 Durango ½ Escudo- there are at least two, and maybe three, different Style of Eagles used this year; the Mexican Facing Eagle Style and the Paris Eagle Style for sure and possibly even the Sonora Eagle Style; again major design changes, but the same DAM and each needs a different number in any system.
Example #5: The 1851 Guadalupe y Calvo 1 Escudo- there are two different Eagles, first the Mexican Facing Eagle Style and second, the first appearance of the Sonora Eagle Style; a major design change, but the DAM remains the same, each needs a different number in any system.
I believe the above cited design changes or style differences are very important to most collectors, and deserve different notations in any numbering system!
Why is a Comprehensive Numbering System Needed Today?
For the last 20 years I have been collecting old and new coin auction catalogs in order to build my FoxLair Republican Gold Coin Sales Index©. After looking at literally thousands of old auction catalogs during this time, I have drawn some conclusions directly attributable to some very interesting facts I have found. First, I was amazed that the area of Mexican numismatics best covered by the older (1920s to 1960s) auction catalogs was the Mexican Revolutionary (1910-1917) Period!
Why? My first thought was-- it might be because the Revolutionary period was so recent? But I had also noted that the early Colonial (1516 to 1556) Period, the War of Independence (1810 to 1821) Period, the Iturbide and Maximilian empires were well covered and were not recent historical events. So why was the Republic Period so ignored by most auction catalogers until the 1970s and later?
Finally, I came upon an old list of Mexican Numismatic publications and found that major works had been written about each of these periods. The first dedicated publication about the Revolution Period, The Mexican Revolutionary Coinage by Howland Wood was in published in 1921 and included a comprehensive numbering system for the Revolutionary coins, making the cataloging of these coins easy. It was so simple it is unbelievable!
It now appears that the forty-year period from 1921 until 1961 was indeed the Golden Era for Mexican Numismatics, for the vast majority of comprehensive monographs and books covering Mexican Numismatics were published during these years. Yes, I know other books were written and published from 1962 until 1996, but most were guidebooks with price guides, and only one stands out as a really great book during this period.
Why has the Republican Period been ignored?
Today this is the $64 question and I still don’t have a good answer. Why hasn’t someone written about the Republican Period and developed a comprehensive numbering system for all its coins? I personally pushed hard for a good numbering system while helping Mike Dunigan and J.B. Parker with their monumental 1997 work on the Republican 8 Reales Resplandores. Clyde Hubbard and David O’Harrow developed a great numbering system for the Hookneck coins from the Durango, Guanajuato and Mexico City mints, listing all the varieties they have found in their extensive research in the book Hookneck.
So why hasn’t someone else developed one for all Mexican Republic coins? Currently I believe it is because this area of Mexican Numismatics is so fractured with so many different series of coins that no one has stood back at a distance to analyze the problem for all facets and denominations of this period. To my knowledge there are probably fewer than a hundred collectors today collecting any and all coins from the Republic Period, and most of them are Type Collectors. Therefore a numbering system has not been a high priority for most collectors, and this seems to be the only reason I can gather for someone not tackling the problem before now. There is another distinct possibility- many advanced collectors and dealers do not want a good current list available for general consumption with all known DAMs and varieties for personal profit motives.
Are there New DAMs in the Future?
This question brings up another point that I believe to be important for us to remember when considering any numbering system dealing with Mexican Numismatics during the Republican Period- foreign companies controlled most of the Mexican mints during that time. These business ventures were formed with the sole purpose of being profitable and surely, like all businessmen everywhere, we have to assume they tried to do logical and profitable things. Good steel was hard to find in Mexico during the Republican Period, so the mint owners (lessees) went outside Mexico to buy equipment, dies and sometimes engraving, even though it was illegal. They spent much time and money training mint employees, especially highly skilled people such as the assayers, in fact there are records where skilled people were brought to Mexico from Great Britain because their skills were unavailable in Mexico at the time. Therefore, I would assume they would have these assayers work every year that was possible.
I personally believe when we see an assayer suddenly disappear in one or two years in a long run, and then later reappear, there is a good possibility this assayer made coins during those missing years. The reason others may not list them is they have not appeared on the numismatic market or if they have, they were probably sold by private treaty and the sellers and buyers don’t want to share this data with the general collecting community for profit reasons!
Therefore in the FoxLair Numbering System may find some Date, Assayer, and Mintmark (DAMs) combinations that are unreported in other works, and no … I cannot prove they exist today, but I suspect they made coins, even if none have survived. Remember the mint operators were trying to make a profit, and most capital coins (8 Reales and 8 Escudos) were shipped outside Mexico almost as soon as they were minted for numerous reasons. One of the most important reasons was the political instability of Mexico at that time and the “forced loans” by government officials and marauding generals. Of course another reason had to be the inability of the Mexican economy to absorb these larger denominations of specie because these large coins were not used in day-to-day commerce in Mexico at that time.
Today, we know many 8 Reales were shipped to China and other Far East countries for the international trade, because the “Mexican Dollar” was the preferred currency in the Far East. In contrast most of the larger gold coins (8 Escudos and 4 Escudos) were shipped to Europe and the United States, because most of the Mexican mint lessees were from the U.S.A., England and other European countries. It also appears that many 8 Escudos were shipped to South America and the United States for trade purposes. Many, if not most, of these larger gold and silver coins were melted in these foreign countries mints to make local currency. This wasn’t the case in China and to some extent in the United States until sometime after the 1850s because many Mexican coins were legal tender in the U.S.A. until 1857.
Many new gold coins entering the current numismatic market seem to becoming from Europe, South America and to a lesser extent the United States. These coins are sometimes spectacular and very rare examples that have been in collections or accumulations for many years, and some DAMs have never been seen in the modern numismatic market. This same phenomenon occurred with U.S. gold coins in the 1970s through the early 1990s.
Some of these gold coins may have be in collections as Type coins, representing the best coins these old-time collectors saw over a lifetime. This is occurred because most collectors didn’t collect anything other than type coins then; therefore they could wait long periods of time to find that one beautiful or rare piece. In contrast most of the new Republican 8Reales seem to be coming from a few new hoards found in Mexico, even a few in the U.S.A. and the Far East because China has now opened up its borders to the venturesome coin dealers willing to travel into China’s interior to find new material.
With these and other new market conditions, the interest in Mexican Numismatics should be increasing dramatically in the near future. New books and data are becoming available every couple of years now, after many years of a complete drought in new knowledge about the Republican Period. The numbering system or the lack of one first came to my attention while helping Mike Dunigan and J.B. Parker with Resplandores and now again with my own book, about the Republican 8 Escudo gold coins-- The Golden Eagles of the Mexican Republic- The Last Gold Doubloons of Eight. Here, hopefully is my final proposed solution to this problem, the new and unified FoxLair Mexican Republic Numbering System©.
The few people that have already seen my proposed numbering system all seem to have strong feelings about it!
Some believe and say it is unnecessary! Some said it is a great improvement over other numbering systems developed in the past because it is a dynamic system, which allows changes, additions and deletions without renumbering the entire system and it was developed specifically for the Republic Period coins which have been in total disarray in the past.
So far my loudest critics have been close coin collecting associates of mine from the Mexican coin collecting community. The first, Clyde Hubbard, says numbering systems are unnecessary for Mexican coins. Second, Dave Busse- the noted Mexican Type Collector, who has never liked my acronym DAM that stands for Date, Assayer and Mintmark! His reasoning is these three initials are not in the order in which they normally appear on the coins of the Republic of Mexico, and he doesn’t like DAM and prefers MDA! But MDA is the registered mark for the American Dystrophy Association, so it can’t be used for legal reasons.
However I like this acronym for several reasons, the first being that it lists the coins in their logical and most important sequence; Date, Assayer and then Mintmark. These are the important traits for Mexican Republic coin collectors even if they only collect Type coins. The second reason is that it is easy to remember DAM!
My third nemesis is the well-respected Mexican collector Kirk Menczer. There were several things in my second system that bothered Kirk. For those of you who don’t know this gentleman, Kirk is one of those mighty “number crunchers”, better known as a CPA. Numbers-- their order, their logical place, etc., are very important to CPAs such as Kirk, and my proposed system continued to bug him.
This is not meant to say he hadn’t had good comments and worthy critiques, but numbers and their logical place are very important to someone with his background, much more than to most collectors and someone like me who wants a good computer sorting routine. On a fall of 2002 visit to South Texas Kirk and I had already spent the best part of a long day, evening and most of the early morning (about 2:30 am) hashing over the numbering system. It was a mistake because we were supposed to going fishing the next day at 5:30 am.
Kirk stumbled into my office/tackle room about a quarter to six with a revelation; he had finally worked out all of the problems with the system! We were late (7:30 am) getting on the water as he explained what he thought needed to be done to make the system perfect. While out fishing we were to discuss his fixes, but the fish were biting so we put off our discussion until later.
The second evening and night we again started to rehash the system, but at 10:30 pm Kirk cried calf-rope and headed off to bed, we were committed to be on the water by 6:00 am the next morning. At 5:15 am he again stumbles into the office, looking like hell while I’m having my first cup of coffee.
“Kirk, did you sleep well?” I ask.
“No, I didn’t sleep at all last night worrying about this numbering system, plus I had a bad case of indigestion. But I finally worked the system out!” was his reply. I told him to put his answers on hold … we were going fishing!
Later after Kirk caught his first ever Snook. we spent several hours discussing his final fix of the numbering system. I happen to think Kirk did a marvelous job; here then is his final solution to implementing a dynamic numbering system for Mexican coins.
Kirk suggested scrapping what I had worked on for over 20 years and start with a clean sheet of paper. As unhappy as I am about all the work I have to do, I must admit his final solution was brilliant! Fifteen plus years of work out the window and down the drain! But it has always been my sincere desire that a new numbering system must be helpful to all Mexican coin collectors, making it easier for us to communicate with each other about our wonderful world of Mexican Coins.
First we start with a denomination, but it is inferred and not part of the actual FoxLair number.
Examples: 8 Reales- 8R; 8 Escudos- 8E; ½ Reales-.5R; ½ Escudos- .5E, etc
The first part of the FoxLair number is a two digit alpha code indicating the mint.
Examples: The Alamos mint is - As; Culiacan- Cn; Durango- Do; San Luis Potosi- Pi, etc.
Examples: A few 8Reales
As-1864
Cn-1864
Do-1864
Mo-1824
Pi-1864
Now we come to the meat and potatoes of the system; we use four numeric characters to fully describe the coin by DAM, style change and variety. The first numeric character after the date indicates the first Assayer and Mintmark for that year thus the examples above would be look like those shown below for 8Reales.
Examples:
Cn-1864-1 for the 8R DAM- C. 1864. C.E.
Mo-1824-1 for the 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M.
Pi-1864-1 for the 8R DAM- Pi. 1864. R.O.
But wait, the Durango mint has a second assayer for 1864 so this coin would look like:
Do-1864-2 for the 8R DAM- Do. 1864. L.T.
Cn-1864-11 for the 8R DAM- C. 1864. C.E.
Do-1864-11 for the first 8R DAM- Do. 1864. C.P.
Do-1864-21 for the second 8R DAM- Do. 1864. L.T.
Mo-1824-11 for the Hookneck 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M.
But wait, the Mexico City mint has a second important style other than the Hookneck for 1824, thus it would be: Mo-1824-21 for the “Facing Eagle” 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M.
Do-1864-1100 for an unknown or the Un-attributed 8R DAM- Do. 1864. C.P.
Do-1864-2100 for an unknown or the Un-attributed 8R DAM- Do. 1864. L.T.
Mo-1824-1100 for an unknown or the Un-attributed “Hookneck” 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M.
Mo-1824-2100 for an unknown or the Un-attributed the “Facing Eagle” 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M.
But wait, the Mexico City “Facing Eagle” 8R DAM- Mo. 1824. J.M. has several known varieties, here are a couple:
Examples:
Mo-1824-2101 Type #1 “Fancy 2” Normal Date & Assayer; “5 Acorns & 5 Berries” “Mid Dot Rd.Tail” Eagle’24a-
Mo-1824-2102 Type #2 “Recut “ss” Normal Date & Assayer; “4 Acorns & 4 Berries” “Mid Dot Sq.Tail” Eagle’24_-
Mo-1824-2103 Type #3 “Fancy 2” Normal Date & Assayer; “5 Acorns & 5 Berries” “Mid Dot Rd.Tail” Eagle’24_-
Mo-1824-2104 Type #4 “Lg. 4” Normal Date & Assayer; “4 Acorns & 5 Berries” “Mid Dot Rd.Tail” Eagle’24_-
(1st) Contemporary Counterfeits and Fakes- are listed by mint, year, then CC to note Contemporary Counterfeit and then the numbering sequence for that year. Example: Mo-1856-CC01 or Oa-1858-Fake
(2nd) Patterns or Trial Strikes- are listed by mint, year, and then PT to note Pattern or Trial Strike and then by the sequence number for that year. Example: Do-1832-PT01
At this time I would like to solicit your input and opinions about this Unified Numbering System; expressly items that I haven’t addressed, changes and DAM listings I may not be aware of. If you have ideas or changes that need to be made, (this can include missing assayers, years or mintmarks) that I’m currently unaware of, please contact me. Also I would like to have any information about any hoards that have been found; other collections or collectors, and historical data that is not common knowledge or which has been unpublished in the recent past. Your help and input is needed to make this Mexican Republic Unified Numbering System complete!
I may be reached by phone at (956) 943-8409 or email FoxLairAJ@aol,com. Please contact me at your convenience either day or night. If you call my phone and don’t get an answer… please leave a message on my answering machine, as we are traveling a lot to look at other collections and libraries, but I promise I will get back to you as soon as possible. Or you may reach us by mail at:
Ralph Poucher
FoxLair Partners, Ltd.
P.O. Box AJ
Port Isabel, TX 78578 U.S.A.
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