1 Peso Silver 1966

This peso from 1966 belongs to the last great era of Mexican circulating currency struck in silver. It is made of .720 fineness silver, weighs 16.02 g and measures 34.5 mm in diameter, with a reeded edge. It was produced by the Casa de Moneda de Mexico (the Mexican Mint) and carries on the reverse the profile of Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, the image that defined the silver peso for much of the twentieth century.

This piece is part of the Morelos peso series, which circulated from 1947 with different silver finenesses that dropped over the years. The .720 fineness corresponds to the final stage, the one struck between 1957 and 1967, right before the peso switched entirely to cupronickel. That is why the 1966 reads as one of the last coins of a peso still backed by silver, the close of an era for a denomination people used every day.

Having been struck in large quantities and for circulation, it is not a rare piece in low grades: it is found with relative ease in worn condition. Condition is what sets the value apart. An uncirculated example, with its original luster and the details of the Morelos profile intact, sells well above one that spent years in a pocket. It is a good entry point for anyone building a silver peso series who wants to complete the .720 fineness years.

Mexican circulating peso coins from the second half of the 20th century were struck in alloys that changed according to metal costs and inflationary pressures: .720 silver in the $1, $5, $10 and $25 denominations during the 1940s-50s; cupronickel starting in the 1970s; aluminum bronze and stainless steel in the 1980s; pieces featuring historical figures (Hidalgo, Cuauhtemoc, Juarez, Madero) in the late 1980s just before the transition to Nuevos Pesos in 1992. 1966 corresponds to the period when this variant was in circulation.