Improved Assessment of the Mintage of Mexican Copper Coinage of the Nineteenth Century

by Pablo Luna Herrera

Time ago, while talking to Sergio Humberto Gerardo López, Director of the National Numismatic Museum in Mexico City, he recommended that I check out the government website “Memórica”, (https://memoricamexico.gob.mx) sponsored by the Culture Ministry, a digital hub of files provided by several institutions, public and private, including some owned by the Mexico Mint. There you can find newspapers, government
documents, pictures, and more, dating back to the Viceroyalty period. Definitely a huge tool for investigations of all topics. I immediately started digging for numismatic information. First, I focused on copper coins from the nineteenth century, getting the following information that I hope will be helpful to the collecting community.

As you may know, the scarce mintages of Mexican copper coins before the late nineteenth century are incomplete and difficult to interpret; in the best of cases you can only find the total amounts in pesos and not the numbers of pieces of each denomination issued in each year, and this, without considering here the obvious difficulties of translating the Decimal amounts into the Real system.

The best treatises that I can recommend regarding the quantities of copper coins produced during the first half of the nineteenth century are the Memoria de Hacienda (Treasury annual reports) by the Treasury Minister Bonifacio Gutíerrez, published in 1849, (with a facsimile in 1989), and “Moneda de México” in Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geografia, Tomo V” (Universal Dictionary of History and Geography, Volume V) by Manuel Orozco y Berra published in 1854 (with a facsimile in 1993).

A more contemporary reference are the four volumes of Historia Numismática de México written by Dr. Alberto Francisco Pradeau in 1957, reporting minting quantities for all the mints, including total minting values in pesos and, sometimes, the number of pieces per denomination. All those wanting to study these numbers must realize that Pradeau got much of his data from annual reports based (in most of the cases) on the Mexican fiscal year that starts in July of one year and ends in June of the following year. This is especially important since coins bear dates based on the calendar year, that starts in January and ends in December of the same year. Unfortunately, despite the tremendous value of Pradeau’s iconic compilation, it suffers from two major issues: first, occasionally the author does not provide references and, second,it tends to pool yearly issues into decades. For example: for the Zacatecas Mint, Pradeau reports (Volume III, page 305) separate data for 1872 and 1873, and groups 1874 with 1875 and 1880 with 1881, when the documents show information for a single year. In the case of the Chihuahua Mint the information found reports mint records for 1832 and 1841 to 1844, that Pradeau does not address (Volume II, page 302). Also, some numbers, such as 1865, differ. Just to mention a couple of cases as all the mints displayed some differences.

The main authors that have published quantitative Mexican numismatic data. From left to right: Bonifacio Gutiérrez (1809-1882), Manuel Orozco y Berra (1816- 1881), Alberto Francisco Pradeau (1894-1980)

Looking for ways to overcome these limitations, I searched for the original sources of information. Regarding the mintages of copper coins, the Memórica website provided original information that helped to clarify some of these inconsistencies, adding more and, sometimes, new information about the copper coins produced by the different Mexican Mints.

Before discussing this data, I want to make some caveats.

1. I quote the reference of the information in all the numbers shown. If you want to see the original document (which I recommend), open the Memórica website, and type the name of the document in the search box.
2. Unfortunately, not all the coins have available numbers, a problem that even the contemporaneous authors had alluded to.
3. When only one copper value was produced in a particular year, its mintage is normally reported, but when multiple denominations were produced (i.e., ¼ and ⅛ Real), the Mint reported only the total amount of pesos in all the values. With the beginning of the decimal system, with only one type of copper coin being minted (the one Centavo) the translation from pesos to mintage became much easier.
4. Some mints report copper production in years in which no coin is known of that year. A hypothesis is that maybe the amounts represent coins dated in a previous or future year, a situation that is usual in silver coining. Also, we must consider that in fiscal years, coining production covers two different years.
5. All the information provided (according to the original source) is by calendar years: exceptions are indicated in the tables.
6. I have only included here mintage information available on the website. I know that some data is still missing. Also, I did not include the Mexico City mint, since Gutierrez (1849), Orozco y Berra (1854) and Pradeau (1957) include information that seems complete and likewise available on this website.
7. I incorporated this information into the tables below including the year, the amount in pesos produced in that period (sometimes the mints grouped years) and all the copper pieces produced in that year or period: For a better understanding, I have added the “KM” number of each coin; and when only one copper coin was produced, I have added the mintage based on the corresponding calculation if it’s the octaval or the decimal system.

I believe this improved assessment of the mintage of Mexican copper coinage of the nineteenth century would help collectors and researchers better to assess the relative scarcity of this coinage. By going to the primary sources, freely accessible through the internet, research will confirm our assessment. However, this is not a substitute to visiting archives or museums, given that not all the data is available, and not all the amounts and years are online. I see this kind of tool as a start of a great idea, that needs to be complemented with other kind of references: in this case I used the three books previously mentioned.
I hope you will benefit from this improved panorama of the amounts of copper coins minted by the different mints of Mexico.
I appreciate the help of Mr. Guzman Sanchez Schmitz in the elaboration of this article.

Endnotes:
1. Exposición de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la casa de moneda de Zacatecas, desde su establecimiento en 1810 hasta 1888. Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático.
2. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de San Luís Potosí, desde su fundación en 1817 hasta 1888 y de la amonedación en la Casa de Sombrerete los años de 1810, 1811 y 1812, únicos que estuvo abierta. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático].
3, Acuñación [de la Casa de Moneda de Zacatecas] en los años de 1858, 1859 y 1862. Es una copia.
4. Exposición de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la casa de moneda de Zacatecas, desde su establecimiento en 1810 hasta 1888. Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático.
5. Acuñación [de la Casa de Moneda de Zacatecas] en los años de 1858, 1859 y 1862. Es una copia.
6. Exposición de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la casa de moneda de Zacatecas, desde su establecimiento en 1810 hasta 1888. Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático.
7. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de San Luís Potosí, desde su fundación en 1817 hasta 1888 y de la amonedación en la Casa de Sombrerete los años de 1810, 1811 y 1812, únicos que estuvo abierta. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático].
8. Acuñación de la Casa de Moneda de Guadalajara, desde 1813 a 1870. Vid. Copia del Boletín de la Sociedad de Geografía y Estadística de la República Mexicana, segunda época, tomo III, páginas 100-101.
9. Legajo 1141. Tomado de Memoria de Hacienda, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, México, 1857.
10. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de Guadalajara, en 1812 y 1813 y desde 1821 hasta 1888. Ambrosio Sagarsurrieta. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo de Numismática].
11. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de Chihuahua, desde su creación en 1811 hasta 1888, si contar los años de 1815 a 1831, en que se suspendieron sus trabajos. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático].
12. Declara la acuñación de plata y oro y la amonedación de cobre en la Casa de Moneda de Chihuahua, desde 1811 hasta 1844. Tomado de Memoria de Hacienda presentada el 8 de julio de 1845 por don Luis de la Rosa.
13. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de Chihuahua, desde su creación en 1811 hasta 1888, si contar los años de 1815 a 1831, en que se suspendieron sus trabajos. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático].
14. Resumen de los valores de oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de Alamos, de 1868 a 1888. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo Numismático]
15. Relación del oro, plata y cobre, acuñados en la Casa de Moneda de Durango, desde su fundación por Bernardo Bonavia en 1811 hasta 1888. [Vid. Acuñación en la República Mexicana. José C. Segura. Archivo de Numismática].
16. Legajo 1141. Tomado de Memoria de Hacienda, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, México, 1857.
17. Resumen de lo acuñado en la Casa de Moneda de esta ciudad en todo el año de 1875. El Repertorio. Vid. El Minero Mexicano. Enero 20 de 1876, número 41, tomo III, página 491.
18. Casa de Moneda de Guanajuato. Estado de acuñación habida en la Casa de Moneda Guanajuato, de 1812 a 1900 (propio)
19. Estado general de la acuñación de oro, plata y cobre, de la Casa de Moneda de Oaxaca, desde que comenzó sus trabajos en 1858 hasta 1888. Es una copia.