| The 8 R Mexico
1778 FM featured above ranks among the RAREST in the portrait series of
Mexico. There are approximately TEN of these coins known to exist in the
world, of which only two or three are close to this coin's grade (VF),
all the rest of being of rather bad condition or covered with CHOP MARKS,
private assay marks which Chinese merchants would place on silver coins
in order to attest to their weight and purity. Chop marks and test marks
were resorted to as common commercial practices by merchants only after
1772 when the coinage shifted from the high-grade Dos Mundos coins (916.66
fine silver), which passed from hand to hand virtually unquestioned due
to their sterling reputation and integrity, to the lesser-grade silver
portrait or "bust" coins (902.66 fine silver at best) which were often
considered suspect because of their propensity for debasement and frequent
counterfeiting.
The discovery
of this particular assayer (FM) for the year 1778 came as a rather late
development, as it had previously been unknown to numismatists. Dr. Alberto
Francisco Pradeau's book Numismatic History of Mexico (1938) makes no mention
of this assayer. It is UNLISTED in Harris, R. Pillars and Portraits (1969).
Elizondo, C. Eight Reales and Pesos of the New World (1971) has very scanty
information on the coin except that one was sold by Jess Peters Inc. in
1970. It is UNLISTED in Vicenti J. Catalogo General de la Moneda Espanola
(1978).
This superb
coin is, in the considered opinion of some of the most knowledgeable Spanish
colonial coin experts, RARER than all pillar dollars except those originating
from the Santiago (Chile) mint. It is therefore EXTREMELY RARE not only
because it has never been found in a considerably better condition than
the one portrayed here. Mintage unknown. (Philippine collection) |
