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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.

Since I am starting a new NGC Collectors Society custom set based on the Spanish Provisional Government coins of 1870, I thought to re-image all the coins in the set. It’s funny how when you give your coins another look that you notice new things about them. Or, is it that you haven’t looked in a long time and simply forgot. Either way its part of what makes this hobby fun for me. One of the coins I re-imaged is an NGC 1870 MS-65 Red 1 Centimo coin. This coin represents the lowest denominated copper coin of the series. It only weighs 1 gram and measures 15.5 mm in diameter. I was already fully aware of a couple of major die cracks and a few other smaller ones on the reverse of this coin. However, it only recently dawned on me that several of the marks in the field of the reverse were in fact die clash marks. Die clashes occur when the hammer die strikes an anvil die without a planchet in the collar and the dies leave their impressions on the opposite dies. The fields of the coin are typically incuse meaning that the fields on the die are relief. This is why the impression occurs in the fields because the devices on the die are incuse. Subsequently, that impression is transferred to every coin struck thereafter with that die pair. This can happen with any size dies but I have found it most prevalent on very small coins. Still, many of the Morgan Dollar VAMs are indeed die clashes. I have also found that the heaviest clash marks occur on the anvil die which is typically the coins reverse. That said I have a few coins with clash marks clearly visible on both sides of the coin. Having just noticed the clashing on my Spanish coin, I thought to do an overlay of the obverse on the reverse. There is a slight die rotation that you can see in my overlay picture. A side by comparison of my overlay and without overlay pictures clearly show how the clash marks line up with an outline of the main obverse device. In my pictures I have also pointed out a few of the major die cracks as if they needed pointing out. The other arrows point to the reverse clash marks. Maybe some of those cracks occurred as a result of the clashing. Interesting stuff to ponder. Gary