Real de Catorce
During the first quarter of the nineteen century Real de Catorce produced cuartillas and hacienda tokens.
Teodoro Parodi
In 1815 Captain Teodoro Parodi began to produce copper cuartillas. However, from 1816 he was warned of their abundance and difficulty of exchange, so on 13 March 1818 the authorities of Real del Catorce agreed that these would be collected and exchanged for provisions in the Alhóndiga of the town.
Teodoro Parodi’s cuartillas are of two different types. They are made of copper, with a diameter ranging from 20mm. The design reads "Teodoro Parodi" in a circular shape and in the centre the word "vale", with some decorative elements.
However, in 1818 José Villegas was allowed to coin 175 pesos (700 cuartillas) in new coins "that are not easily counterfeited" so as not to leave the people without small coin in circulation. Antonio Chacón received the same concession to mint 180 pesos (720 cuartillas), and Marcos Reyes 84 pesos (336 cuartillas). These 1,756 pieces were planned as a temporary measure, and the three were to collect in their coinage, when the time came.
The problems continued in 1818, for various documents mention the abuse of the copper coinage and its connection with the scarcity of food. In addition merchants outside the area took advantage of a ruinous exchange rate. So the sindico procurador in that same year, José Briz de Cosgaya, proposed to call in these coins, but to achieve it he authorised a mortgage of his goods as a guarantee, added to a loan of 600 pesos from the residents of the town, but this only became 600 pesos of new cuartillas, thus adding to the damage.
Finally, at the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century, Pedro Goñi and Alejandro Zerraton agreed to withdraw their goods and the concession to mint coin and it was agreed to withdraw all the currency in exchange for goodsRafael Montejano y Aguiñaga, “Las Monedaciones de El Real del Catorce, S.L.P.”, in Gaceta de la Sociedad Numismática de Monterrey, April 1980.
Fernández and GómezMauricio Fernández & Gabriel Gómez S., Moneda Particulares Mexicanas state that Teodoro Parodi was at first authorized to produce the equivalence of 600 pesos, but that this reached 5,817 pesos or 186,144 coins by 1818, when circulation was prohibited and the coins began to be amortized.
Fondos Públicos
¼ real Fondos Públicos Real de Catorce 1822 (Briggs & Bustos auction #1, 9 September 2022, lot 343)
The Fondos Públicos coins were only minted in 1822, circulated locally and were backed by the Municipal Treasury and exchanged if guaranteed for silver.