Owner Comments:

This coin was bought as assayer CH.

In his description of the 1862 ½ Escudo from Mexico City (½ Escudo 1862 Mo CH) Richard Long mentioned that “in 1958 and 1961 Henry Christiansen had a Fine coin with assayer initials FH, not CH. And a C/F has been reported in just a few dealer descriptions. A student of the ½E series reports that both his C/F and his other coin purchased as a normal CH coin shows a faint F beneath the C” and “…recent catalogs list only the normal coin” (referring to the CH).

So this was bought as ½ Escudo (NGC AU58 2803312-002 labelled as assayer C H).

On detailed inspection on magnification it can be clearly seen that the top of C has a straight horizontal line (vertical arrow), and the inferior arm of an F (horizontal arrow) .

The 1862 Mo ½ escudo is easily available, and the frequency of CH and C/FH varieties remains to be determined.

This very coin was published in the Journal of the US Mexican Numismatic Association, September 2016, page 32 with detailed pictures of the over assayer.