The Mexican Coin Made at the New Orleans Mint
New Orleans Mint was one of the first three original branch mints established by the
United States Mint in 1838. Throughout its history of making coins, much of the bullion used for coinage production came from foreign coin deposits – often in the form of Mexican coinage. Yet, while the New Orleans Mint’s sole task during most of its years of operation was to produce United States coinage, there was one exception: the
Mexico 1907 20 Centavos coin.
Mexico 1907-M Curved 7 20 Centavos PCGS MS64. Images courtesy
PCGS
The first priority of the United States Mint was to produce circulation coinage for domestic commerce, but the U.S. government began accepting contracts in the 1800s to produce coins for other nations. These contracts were often quite lucrative, with various foreign and private mints seeking out this work. While the U.S. Mint went on to produce more than 1,000 different coins for over 40 countries, only one such coin was produced at the New Orleans Mint.