20 Centavos 1979 (Madero): Value & What to Check

If you inherited or found a 1979 Mexican 20 centavos with a man's face on it, the honest answer is this: in circulated condition it's worth a few cents to maybe a dollar or two. It holds no silver, and it is one of the most common coins Mexico ever made. Over 524 million were struck in 1979 alone. The only versions worth real money are top-grade uncirculated examples or genuine minting errors.

The face on the coin is Francisco I. Madero, a leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and president of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. That history is interesting, but it does not add a cent to the coin's value. What matters for your wallet is the metal, the mintage, and the condition.

What it's actually worth in 2026

Straight to the number: a normal, worn 1979 20 centavos trades among collectors for a few pesos, roughly the equivalent of a US quarter or less. You will see online marketplace listings asking anywhere from about 4 to 30 USD, but those are asking prices, not what the coin actually sells for. Nobody is paying 30 dollars for a coin this common.

The value only climbs in two situations:

1. High-grade uncirculated (BU) examples. A coin that never circulated, with full mint luster and sharp detail on Madero's face, is genuinely harder to find than the mintage suggests, because almost all of them were spent and worn down. A certified BU piece can bring a modest premium, but we're still talking single-digit dollars in most cases, not a windfall.
2. Minting errors. Off-center strikes, double dies, or wrong-planchet errors can add real value. These are the exception, not the rule.

Metal, weight, and specs (no silver here)

The 1979 20 centavos is cupronickel: 75 percent copper, 25 percent nickel. There is no silver and no gold in it. That means it has essentially zero melt value, its worth is purely numismatic.

Spec	Detail
Metal	Cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)
Weight	3 grams
Diameter	20 mm
Thickness	approx. 1.3 mm
Edge	Plain (smooth)
Catalog	KM#442 (Madero family, 1974 to 1983)
Mint	Casa de Moneda de México (Mo mark)
1979 mintage	524,615,000

A common myth is that any 20 centavos coin contains silver. That's true only for much older pieces from the early 20th century. This one does not. Do not melt it expecting silver, there is none.

Is it rare? No.

With over half a billion struck in a single year, the 1979 20 centavos is one of the most common Mexican coins of its era. If you have one, so do millions of other households. Age does not equal rarity, and searching for it does not mean it's scarce. It was everyday pocket change that passed through markets and buses for years.

This coin belongs to the Madero series of 20 centavos struck from 1974 to 1983. The 1979 date sits in the final stretch before Mexico's monetary reform of the 1980s reshaped the currency. Interesting for context, irrelevant for value.

The part collectors actually care about: condition

Because these coins saw heavy use, most surviving examples arrive worn, with Madero's portrait softened and the fields scuffed. The scarce and slightly more valuable pieces are the ones that never circulated: original luster, crisp portrait detail, clean surfaces.

If you're building a set of centavos from this period, the 1979 is an easy, cheap entry point, and a good coin to practice on when learning to tell genuine mint-state condition from ordinary wear. Learning that difference is what separates a coin worth cents from one worth a small premium.

How to tell if yours is genuine

Honestly, this coin is so common and so cheap that counterfeiting it makes no economic sense. Fakes are essentially nonexistent. Still, to confirm you have the real thing:

• Weight: 3 grams.
• Diameter: 20 mm.
• Metal: cupronickel, silver-gray throughout. It should not be plated or magnetic in an unusual way.
• Design: Madero's bust on the reverse, the National Coat of Arms with the legend Estados Unidos Mexicanos on the obverse, and the Mo mint mark.

If your coin matches those specs, it's genuine.

Where to buy or sell it

Because it's so common, you can pick one up cheaply in bulk lots of old coins or from any coin shop. To sell, don't rely on optimistic marketplace asking prices. Deal with people who actually know the market: browse the Pesoteca shop directory to buy or sell with dealers, and check our guides on how coin grading affects value and which Mexican coins actually contain silver before you assume any old coin is worth a fortune.

Got a box of old Mexican coins and not sure which ones (if any) are worth real money? Post clear photos in the Pesoteca forum and we'll help you sort the common change from the pieces worth setting aside.

The centavo coins form the base of the Mexican monetary system. Banxico has changed their diameters, materials, and alloys several times over the past decades to optimize minting costs. The 20-centavo Cupronickel piece struck in 1979 belongs to the Banxico Numismatic Collection catalog documented on its official site.

For Mexican collectors, centavo pieces have value when they capture a change of material, a die error, or an atypically low mintage. Banxico has published annual mintages in CM10 since the year 2000. For earlier pieces the data may not be available. This record follows the convention of the PSM System, one ID per distinct physical piece, not per shared design.