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Numismatics has always been an obsession with me. It’s either all in or all out. While I have been able to maintain an even keel on almost all my sets, it has not been easy as she goes with my new custom set, “The Beginning, Dependability, and End of the Spanish Peseta.” This year most of my custom sets have seen some activity including my Inspirational Ladies set with a new French coin commemorating Joan of Arc and a Fantasy Crown featuring, “The Three Graces.” All my sets have had aesthetic upgrades meaning new and reformatted pictures. Having more time to spend on coins is one of the benefits of being retired. Other big purchases this year have included the Apollo 11 commemoratives less the gold coin and two upgrades to my 7070 type-set. The most recent addition to my type-set just this week is a PCGS MS-64 1906 Barber Quarter with a green bean. Trying to keep a promise to my wife, I have sold some of my doubles this year to buy the aforementioned coins. Interestingly, I have been pretty successful in keeping our household budget spreadsheet balanced. However, starting a new and unexpected set has sent me catapulting off into obsession oblivion! Thus, I think there should be a danger label with all coin sales, “Danger, Buying Coins Maybe Detrimental to Your Budget.” All this begs to question, “How did I get here, and why the Spanish Peseta?” To get those answers, I need to go all the way back to 2013 and my seated imagery set. It was then that I discovered coins featuring Hispania in a seated position on the 1870 Spanish Provisional Government coins. While I only needed one of the copper coins and one of the silver coins, I thought it would be nice to collect them all. Today I only lack the two scarcest silver coins. I have held all these coins over the years without having the bulk of them entered into either a custom set or a registry set. As far as the registry set, none currently exists for these coins. That was until I sent an e-mail to NGC asking for a set a few weeks ago. NGC has responded and shortly there will be a set for my set-less Spanish Provisional Government coins. Up until last September I couldn’t imagine myself being here today having completed a nice 16 coin Spanish peseta set complete with write-ups totaling over 10,000 words. That was until purely by chance I noticed an 1868 bronze 5-peseta pattern for auction on E-bay. I knew of these copper patterns and have always wanted one. As you all know, I won the auction, had it conserved, and graded at MS-63. This had the effect of striking a match in an oil refinery and I was off to the races. Now I had to have a so-called home for the Spanish Provisional Government coins in my collection and only intended for limited custom set of just those coins. That was until I was intrigued by the following paragraph on the Royal Spanish Mint’s website: “The currency is a faithful reflection of history. Within its small dimensions, all the coordinates of the moment in which it was coined are enclosed and are always an inexhaustible source of information. The aesthetic, political, religious conceptions and the economic situation of the people are indelibly reflected in these small metal discs. Therefore, the 134 years in which the peseta has spent in the economy of Spain have seen transcendental events happen in the conformation of what is now the life of the Spaniards. Kings, artists, and conquerors have passed through the hands of the citizens; The peseta has become a key piece of popular iconography: longed for, hated, idolized ... in short, the history of the peseta is, in large part, the history of Spanish men and women entering the modern world.” Wanting to capture the essence of that paragraph, I enthusiastically expanded my set and used the paragraph as a road-map for the write-ups. Having bought the coins I needed and read and re-read the many articles and pieces on Spanish history, I believe that I have met the set objective and now it is finished. There is another aspect about this set that is unlike any of my other custom sets and that is that I don’t have to buy any more coins for it. It is complete as a set. My other sets are more open-ended in that when I find a coin that meets the set objective, I add it, much like the coins for my Inspirational Ladies set. Of course, this means I’ll have to come down from my Spanish Peseta high. It is always nice to buy a lot of new coins. However, it’s a huge letdown when you’re done. I’m currently suffering from coin withdrawal. ): The following is a link to my completed custom set: https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/wcm/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=28027 Furthermore, I’m using a picture of my new Barber Quarter as my blog photo. Whew, now I can go out and blow leaves around Gary

Here I go again, just as I got started on a new collection with a narrow scope, things began to get out of hand and now I am now faced with a giant. Is there a cure for my collecting obsession? Do I want to be cured? Probably not and hence my dilemma as the scope and of necessity, the expense expands. Oh, how I love it! As I previously wrote I intended to start a new set based on the 1869-70 coins of the Spanish Provisional Government. I thought this would be easy because I already owned most of the coins. As I began researching my new collection it expanded to include the entire history of the peseta as I will summarize towards the end of this post. As of today, I don’t know why this topic captivates me but it does. Perhaps the key to knowing this is in how Spaniards view their own coinage. Consequently, the title of my new set has changed to, “The Birth and Durability of the Spanish Peseta.” I am posting a link to my new set with the coins I currently own plus an upgrade of the 1870(70) 5-Peseta and a new purchase of the 1869(69) 1-Peseta. Incidentally, the 1-Peseta will be the cornerstone coin of my new collection. https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetGallery.aspx?s=28027 The 19th Century saw the decline of Spain as a world power. By the mid 1820’s Puerto Rico and Cuba were all that remained of Spain’s colonies in the America’s. And in Cuba a war for independence from Spain was looming (Ten Years’ War 1868-78). Much of Spain’s Queen Isabella II’s reign (1833-1868) was plagued by politically motivated uprisings and scandals. To make matters worse Queen Isabella II proved to be incompetent as a ruler. This all came to a head in 1868 with, “The Glorious Revolution” ending in the exile of Queen Isabella II to France. Following the revolution, a provisional government was put in place to restore order and form a new government. Many of the political reforms under consideration included financial reform. On October 19, 1868, Minister of Finance, Don Laureano Figuerola modernized Spain’s currency according to the standards set by the Latin Monetary Union. Gone were the escudos, pesos, reales, and maravedi’s of the past and in were the decimalized currency of pesetas and centimos, whereas 100 centimos equal 1 peseta. From 1868-2002 Spain has been governed under two republics, four monarchs, and a dictator as a result of a civil war. Through all this turmoil the peseta has survived for 134 years until 2002 when Spain adopted the euro as their national currency. Perhaps with all this history in mind is why the Royal Mint in Madrid, Spain posted the following concerning the sunsetting of the peseta in 2002 on their website. “The currency is a faithful reflection of history. Within its small dimensions all the coordinates of the moment in which it was coined are enclosed and is always an inexhaustible source of information. The aesthetic, political, religious conceptions and the economic situation of the people are indelibly reflected in these small metal discs. Therefore, the 134 years in which the peseta has spent in the economy of Spain have seen transcendental events happen in the conformation of what is now the life of the Spaniards. Kings, artists and conquerors have passed through the hands of the citizens; The peseta has become a key piece of popular iconography: longed for, hated, idolized ... in short, the history of the peseta is, in large part, the history of Spanish men and women entering the modern world.” With my post are some of the pictures of my most recent purchases. The first is a commemorative set issued at the sunsetting of the peseta featuring the original 1869-70 design. The other is an NGC MS-65 1869 one peseta coin. Gary.