Zacatecas Provisional Coinage
1811 ・ silver ・ 19th century ・ Zacatecas
The silver mining town of Zacatecas also began to strike its own coinage in the midst of war. The design chosen for the provisional issue was not the king's bust, but a mountain and a cross—the very image of the mountain that produces silver. This design would later change to an armored bust. If the dies from the capital could not be delivered, the town had no choice but to engrave what it had on hand: the mountain, the source of its wealth. For the first time in three hundred years, a local identity appeared on the silver coins of Mexico, which had been unified under a single, authoritative image.