North and Central American Coins
The coins of North and Central America share a hemisphere but little else. Mexico's Casa de Moneda has been striking coins since 1535 — the oldest mint in the Americas — while some Central American nations did not produce their own coinage until the twentieth century. The continent's numismatic history runs from colonial silver reales through revolutionary pesos, from pre-Columbian imagery on modern denominations to currencies that were pegged, floated, dollarized, and reinvented.
Mexican coinage alone spans more design traditions than most countries produce in their entire minting history: Aztec calendar stones, Maya ball players, independence heroines, revolutionary generals, and the eagle-and-serpent that has appeared on every coin since the republic was founded. Central American nations carry their own visual languages — volcanoes, quetzal birds, indigenous pottery — on currencies that reflect the intersection of colonial heritage and national identity.
The coins in this collection come from a region where the oldest minting tradition in the Western Hemisphere meets some of the newest.
