MEXICO - part 5

THE MODERN PERIOD
    The last third of the 19th century is referred to as the Porfiriato in Mexico, after the dictator who rode the country as one would ride a mule.  His rule had all the familiar aspects of tyranny: personal corruption, nepotism, class oppression, etc.  A few people were made glaringly rich, while a majority were systematically shorn of their rights and properties and reduced to wage slaves who had to keep their mouths shut and work.
    But he liquidated the national debt.
    Porfirio Diaz had been an early adherent of the great Mexican reformer, Benito Juarez, and had become one of the fiercest guerrilla leaders during the war of resistance against the French intervention.  His army liberated Mexico City in 1867, and he was there to greet his leader, Juarez, on his return to the capital.
    Diaz craved kind words and recognition, he was that kind of guy.  But Juarez was not a people person, in fact he had the knack of rubbing people the wrong way.  That is what he did to proud, young Diaz.  The dashing young hero was looking for medals, speeches, a high government post, but it was more like, "Thanks," a handshake, and then it was "Excuse me, I have important work to attend to."
    Young Porfirio, the lover spurned, resolved that from that time on he was only going to work for himself.  He stood for president in the election of 1867, lost, and retired to his hacienda near Oaxaca, donated by the grateful state government for services rendered.
    One of the underlying causes of political instability in the early republic had been an overly independent military.  Command was decentralized to the point that individual generals could at times wield their armies without consultation, and military interference and adventuring in the political arena was an ongoing process.
    Juarez was resolved to bring the army to heel, and to that end he cut budgets, discharged troops, and fired generals.  Reform was not that simple, however.  Many of those generals were possessed of the loyalty of their troops, whom they would promise to pay.  Several of them raised rebellions in the countryside, and the last years of Juarez administration were passed in the suppression of these uprisings.
    In the process of nailing down the outlying districts Juarez found himself forced to impose his own people in local administration against the democratic wishes of the local people.  In some places election laws were jiggered so things would come out "right."  The result was the commonly seen process of a democratic institution masking an imposed tyranny.  Well, at least the tyranny was being run by a democrat!
    The national election of 1871 resulted in a three way split between Juarez, Diaz, and Sebastian Lerdo.  The impasse was thrown to Congress, which gave the presidency to Juarez for a fourth term, and made Lerdo president of the Supreme Court.  Snubbed yet again. Diaz raised simultaneous rebellions in the South and in the capital itself.  Both were crushed, and Diaz was forced into hiding.   Juarez died of a heart attack at his desk a few months later.  As specified in the Constitution, Lerdo became president.  He immediately offered amnesty to the Porfiristas.  A few years of quiet ensued, but when Lerdo announced his intention to run for president again in 1876, Diaz again raised a rebellion, this time under the political
slogan of "No Reelection."  Diaz and his troops swept the country.
    Diaz had been born poor, and had grown to be an ardent Republican.  His military and political career had involved him with big schemes and big money, and big money people find it hard to be anything other than Conservative, they have so much to lose.  Diaz noted that these people made big things happen, while his people back home in the village did not.  He became a social darwinist.
    That philosophy, that there are better and worse people, and that the betters would rise while the worse would fall, produced a policy of "to them that have, it shall be given."  The practice of this creed resulted in a massive expropriation of Indian land, and its sale to a small number of large owners.  The dispossessed Indians were forced to become plantation workers at killingly low wages, to buy their necessities at the company store at ruinously high prices, to require credit at those stores and usurious rates, and to pass on their unpayable debts to their malnourished children.  It was nothing but slavery with
a different structure.
    Though great personal fortunes were made thus, the "system" was truly a mismanagement of the countryside, to the point that Mexico, by the turn of the century, was importing food.
    On the capital side of the economy the Porfiriato was marked by a close alignment of Mexico with its creditors.  The various debts were consolidated and a regular schedule of repayments were begun.  In 1894, for the first time since independence, Mexico achieved a balanced budget.  At that point foreign money began to pour in from all sources, and by the turn of the century a large surplus had accumulated.  Viewed from the top of the economic heap, things looked pretty good.  As for the folks on the bottom, who cared?  There were coupons to clip.
    Diaz got old.  The question of what post-Diaz politics would look like became acute.  Nevertheless, Diaz "ran" and was "reelected" president in 1910.  One of the other candidates, Francisco Madero, denounced the results and declared himself "provisional president."  After an embarrassing pause of a couple of weeks, armed rebellions began breaking out in his favor.
 Porfirio's coins give clues to the economic needs of his reign.  Note that by 1871 the real-escudo coinage is abandoned for all denominations except for the 8 real.  This is because most of the "dollars" had been for the China trade.  The Chinese loved the cap-and-ray dollars, why mess with a machine that works?
    Domestically, the old system was scrapped in favor of the decimal peso system introduced by the ill-starred French puppet emperor Maximilian.  Weight and fineness were a bit higher than contemporary American coinage, so there was a slight trade advantage.  The Americans tried to correct that imbalance with their "trade dollars," but we all know how that turned out.
    Any subset of late Republican coins is going to be hard to complete, even a type set.  High grade material, except for a few pieces here and there, is hard to find.  Of all denominations the pesos are about the easiest to collect, with several dates from most of the mints turning up over and over.  Silver minors are distinctly scarcer, with the 50 centavos probably being the scarcest silver denomination.  The copper-nickel coins of 1883 are common, and there are a few common copper centavos, but most of the provincial mint issues, despite their low catalog values, are never seen by anyone.
    The gold is all rare and expensive in this country.  I've heard rumors that there is a severe price differential between Mexico and the USA for type gold, but have not verified this with my own eyes.  The collectors must be scarcer than the coins themselves.
    Utterly unmentioned in the histories, but glaringly shouted from the face of the coinage, was the change of the country's name from "Republic" to "United States" in 1905.  Though the new style was adapted during the Porfiriato and meant nothing it was a convenient point for Whitman to begin its Mexican coin folders, and inaugurates the "modern" Mexican coin series.  As if to highlight the meaninglessness of the name change, when pesos were struck in 1908 and 1909 after a hiatus of a few years they bore the old titles, and of course no one cared.
    The silver minor coinage was a bit reduced in weight from its Republican predecessor, while the weight of the gold was cut in half.  These moves meant that Mexico was officially out of the business of exporting bullion.  Such was the power of the Diaz government that the financial reform was carried through without incident.  All the local mints were closed, and the Mexico City operation took to contracting out jobs to Europe and America when supplements were needed to the coinage supply.

REVOLUTION
---Sorry, I skipped it.  One day I'll do it.---

    The basic market facts of revolutionary material are that a very small handful of original types are somewhat available (Chihuahua 5¢ and 10¢, some of the Oaxaca coppers), a few notable restrikes (Tetela del Oro y Campo 2¢) are too,
and the rest of the types, both listed and unlisted in major references, are available seldom or not at all.
    Throughout the revolutionary period the Estados Unidos coinage continued to be struck at Mexico City.  This is the series on which a small mass of date collectors concentrates, and the market for thesecoins resembles (in miniature) that for American coins.  Many of the later common and semi-key dates were put aside in uncirculated rolls way back when by dealers, and one finds, if one purchases old collections, long date runs.  In contrast to rare Republican coins, for which you can generally search in vain, one has a chance of coming up with many of the Estados Unidos toughies with some phone calls.
    There is, on the other hand, perhaps some element of wishful thinking in the higher catalog prices, a reflection of memories of the roaring '60s, when all sorts of coins were so readily promotable, and Mexican coins were right up there with Canadian, British, and Israeli money as fields that seemed at the time to be developing a true mass base.  Chances are you could arrange some discount when you find the one you're looking for.
    The sizes of the silver minors were adjusted several times between 1905 and 1945 in reaction to changes in the market price of silver.  These changes gave rise to such oddities as the large bronze 20 centavos coin, struck in small numbers in 1920 and again fifteen years later.  There were variations in the module of the base metal coins as well, making for a rather extensive type set.
    Bronze became the normal metal for minor coins during World War II, and in 1947 the peso began a slide that continued without stopping basically until today.  Most of the 1940s-50s types are really common, the Cuauhtemoc and Hidalgo 5 pesos and Hidalgo 10 pesos, etc. trading mainly as bullion coins.
    By 1957 the silver content of the peso was down to ten percent, a crown sized coin containing a little less bullion than a 1905 10 centavos.  In circulation the coins became coppery pretty quickly, and they came to be nicknamed "potsherds" by the Indians.  These are extremely common coins.
    In the 1970s there were all sorts of minor varieties, about which very few people care.   The last attempt at a circulating coin in solid silver was the Morelos 100 peso struck between 1977 and 1979.  The silver boom of 1980 put a stop to that, and one never sees these common coins in circulated condition.  1980s coinage was strictly base metal as far as the circulation went, with silver and gold confined to non-circulating commemorative coins.  There are some impossible dates in the series,
and scarce varieties, but the collector base is thin.
    Galloping inflation during the late 1980s and early 90s brought coin denominations in the thousands of pesos.  The reform of 1992 simplified accounting by lopping off three zeros.  The "new peso" coinage had some design features made to attract collectors: a wavy-edge 50 centavos and bimetallic planchets.  It was hoped that the new peso would hold its value and support the silver content of the higher denominations, thus restoring bullion to circulation.  This didn't work out, as the peso lost value.
    Estados Unidos gold was struck only occasionally, and in small quantities, until the 1950s, when the mint started restriking certain dates for sale as bullion.  The bullion dates are ubiquitous, but other dates are very hard to find.
    Speaking of bullion, with the demise of circulating specie in the 20th century governments started looking around for something to do with excess gold and silver.  Mexico, which still, after all these centuries, produces the bulk of the world's silver, led the way in presenting that bullion to the public in the hope that private individuals would want to hoard some of the stuff.  The first Mexican silver onza, issued in 1949, is a handsome coinlike object, and the subsequent series of bullion onzas, more lately nicknamed "libertads" after their type is easy to collect.
    It must be mentioned also that the mint has been in the habit of striking commemorative medals to coinage specifications since colonial times.  There are hundreds items in this highly artistic series, most of them silver, many of them gold.  Generally the series is underpriced relative to availability.  Some of them are stunningly beautiful showstoppers.
    In the 20th century we see the first commemorative coin, the well-known and beautiful "caballito" peso struck to mark the centenary of Hidalgo's call for an uprising in 1810, and so lovely and useful was this coin found to be that it continued to be made for several years as the Revolution progressed.  Commemorative two peso coins were struck in 1921 for the Centenary of Independence, with the striking Angel of Victory for a type.  She appears also on the gold 50 peso, also struck for the celebration.  The two peso was a one shot deal, but the gold "centenario" turned out to be a popular hoarding coin, and was
continued through 1931, and again from 1943-47, the last date being restruck until 1967.
    The profusion of commemorative issues in the 1980s and 90s has not had much of a market presence.  This is primarily because of the curious policy of the Mexican numismatic authorities of delivering product only within Mexico.  This is why you never see the "common" mint sets, and rarely see the nice gold and silver proofs out here in the rest of the world.  But one would have to say, looking at the overall situation, that demand and supply are fairly well matched.
    I would be remiss if I didn't mention the enormous field of Mexican tokens.  Because of the colonial policy of refusing to coin copper, tokens were made as early as the 16th century.  These continued to be made in great profusion until this very day.  There may be more token types for Mexico than for any other country in the world.  But space limitations dictate that no more than that can be written on that fascinating subject here and now.