Twenty-five peso coins
Type 1 – Olympics
In 1968 Mexico hosted the 19th Summer Olympic Games, and in celebration, authorised this issue by decree of 29 December 1966.
These coins were 72% silver and 28% copper, had a diameter of 38 mm and weight of 22 g. Mintage was to be 30,000,000 but stopped at 27,181,500.
There were three varieties. On variety 1 the Olympic rings are aligned.
KM-479.1 1968 $25 variety 1 with even rings and straight snake's tongue (Stack’s-Bowers auction, 1 November 2023, lot 72271)
On variety 2 the centre ring is low.
KM-479.2 1968 $25 variety 2 (Stack’s-Bowers auction, 30 October 2024, lot 73611)
On variety 3 the centre ring is low and the snake’s tongue curved.
KM-479.3 1968 $25 variety 3
According to Miguel Muñoz,
"The dies were made and the first coins were minted. Five of those were delivered, as is customary, to the Bank of Mexico, five more to the Ministry of Finance and another five to a higher office As these coins were in a cellophane bag, the manufacturer of these bags ordered 25 pieces to test their machines. In total, forty coins came out...
The Olympic Committee soon noticed that the emblem of the five interlocking rings was not correct. As it turned out, the designer took into consideration the curvature of the coin and moved the hoops to better adapt to them. Due to this 'error' it was decided to collect the forty coins to be melted with the others in the Mint and to render the stamps with this 'error' unusable...
When the several people who had received these first coins were asked to return them, most of them did so. However, after several days, six of them (from two different offices) were still missing. A few days later, only two coins were pending and about a week later, one coin was missing.
The person who had received it did not reside in Mexico, nor is he Mexican.When pressed to return the coin, he simply replied 'I lost it'.
Therefore, the Mexican Mint was instructed to mint as many coins as possible with the dies made with this 'error'. So it is that the extremely rare coin and the coin that was actually going to be unique became a member of a family.”
Type 2 – Juárez
KM-480 1972 $25 (Stack’s-Bowers auction, 15 November 2022, lot 72894)
This issue, authorised by decree of 27 December 1969Diario Oficial, 30 December 1969, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of Benito Juárez. These had the same characteristics as Type 1. Mintage was 2,000,000 in 1972.