The currency of a country is a reflection of the country’s history, culture, and economy. It comes in many forms from the primitive barter of ancient indigenous people to the modern sophisticated media of exchange used by most of the world today. The country we now call Mexico, for example, experienced civilization with the advance of contemporary currency all during the same period. The indigenous people at the time of the Spanish conquest used barter trade. After 1520, the Spanish conquistadors introduced contemporary forms of money and Latin American currency that were more relevant for use in the country since these forms of money replaced the inefficient barter trade. These forms of money included coins such as the famous Columnarios, the Escudo, the Peso, the Real, and the Centavo. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, the minting of Mexican currency began. Present-day Mexico includes several rich and diversified destinations for Mexican coinage such as the famous Zócalo Plaza and the internationally admired Desierto de los Leones.
These attractions have been awarded capital status and provide support to a nation that today ranks as one of the largest exporters of non-oil products in the World. When Mexico issued its first coins, the centavo found itself amid an evolving society moving through time alongside some of the most exciting and attractive companies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These companies included Corona, Moctezuma and Busch. These items were very popular for Mexicans of the past and they are today as well. As the Mexican economy becomes more sophisticated its consumption of goods and services has become more specialized, the standards for the centavo have also increased, and the options available to the public have become more complex.
Historical Overview of Mexican Currency
The variety of Mexican currency and its historical development since the adoption of coinage, first using Spanish coins, then Mexican coins used in pre-Hispanic times during the period from the 4th to 10th centuries AD, established in September 1535, as well as the invention and use of Mexican currency from a bimetallic standard in the years 1741, 1872, 1900, 1905, and 1950 will be presented and summarized. Principles of economic theory and public finance will be developed, as well as the political and economic forces that led to the fluctuations in the value of the exchange rate of the Mexican bimetallic standard. The coinage, in a certain way, corresponds to a social contract. That is to say, from the moment in which an authority injects a society with some pieces and credits its value to the pieces for the extinction of tax obligations, and these are accepted by the population to make and receive payments in different commercial transactions, then the pieces are converted into money.
A society can’t have several financial contracts with several authorities because that society would be led to multiple tax payments. Under that scheme, a Mexican coin issued by a federal government will be the same as a coin issued by a state government, but in value, it will be less than a peso, because not all states have the same tax obligations as the federation, or even be null if the state has no outstanding commitments. We know that between 1864 and 1867, with the French intervention in our country and Maximiliano’s empire, the eight Mexican silver reals minted in 1823 continued to circulate, and for that reason, the inscriptions of the empire continued to be punched with a hammer. The coins stopped circulating when the republic was restored.