Collectible Mexican Coins

During the centuries that Mexico was a colony of Spain, the silver real was the country’s currency. It took 16 reales to equal one gold escudo, and 8 reales to equal a single peso, which was Mexico’s dollar. Forty years after Mexico gained its independence from Spain, a decimal monetary system arrived—when it did in 1863, 100 centavos became the new base value of the peso.

Of the coins from the early days of the Republica Mexicana, escudos and reales minted in t...he 1820s are in particularly high demand. Each featured a variation of an eagle with a snake in its beak on the obverse (a reference to the legend of Mexico City’s founding), with a liberty cap on the reverse.