Central American Republic bronze Off-Metal Mule Trial Real 1846 NG-BA MS64 Brown NGC, Nueva Guatemala, KM-Unl., Fonrobert-Unl., Ulex-Unl., Guttag-Unl., Stickney-Unl. Pairing the obverse die of an 1846 2 Escudos with the reverse die of an unpublished NG-BA Real. A fascinating trial, certainly no less intriguing for the peculiarity of its design and make-up than for that fact that it is seemingly entirely unrecorded--not the Fonrobert, Ulex, Guttag, Norweb, Whittier, Pura Vida, nor Stuart collections contained an example, while no note of such a trial is made in Stickney's A Monetary History of Central America. Although the background behind this piece is hazy to say the least, it is perhaps insightful to note that the mint in Guatemala is not known to have produced 1/2 Reales or full Reales after 1824, the issues occupying this period entirely filled by the mints in San Jose and Tegucigalpa, hardly surprising considering both Costa Rica and Honduras's eagerness to take advantage of new legislation in 1824 permitting provincial mints to strike their own coins (provided they adhered to certain standards of purity and a common general layout) as well as general irritation with the monopoly of coinage by the mint in Guatemala. What is more, 8 Reales from the same year bear the initials of Manuel Muñoz (MA), transitioning to the A mark of Apolinario España, rather than the BA initials of Benito Muñoz seen here. Perhaps more at play were the general twin issues of the repeated debasement of the coinage and the undervaluation of silver at the mint, leading to specie rapidly disappearing from the region. Despite a proposal by delegates from Honduras in 1822 to coin 200,000 pesos in copper, assessed by Benito Muñoz to yield great profits for the government, the proposition was ultimately rejected (see Robert S. Smith, "Financing the Central American Federation, 1821-1838," Hispanic American Historical Review Vol. 43 [1963] pp. 483-510). Might it then be possible that the present coin was another attempt to propose the production of a minor coinage in copper, utilizing the obverse die of España's contemporary (and already rare) 2 Escudos as a design concept?

HID09801242017

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