Owner Comments:
Ecuador - 1 Centavo - (KM #67, EC #113) - Mintage 2,016,000
Although these coins are all dated 1928, they were actually minted in April and May of 1929.
April...1,050,000
May........966,000
Ecuador began adopting a decimal coinage system in 1874 with the minting of one and two centavo coins at the Mint in Birmingham, England. The transition was completed on March 22, 1884 with the creation of the silver
sucre coin which was equivalent to 100 centavos. The sucre remained the official unit of currency in Ecuador for 116 years until the President of Ecuador announced on January 9, 2000 that the US dollar would be adopted as Ecuador's official currency.
Ecuadorian President Isidro Ayora introduced a new monetary system in 1927 based on a reduced size, weight, and fineness sucre. In 1928, the country had the U.S. mint produce seven different denominations ranging from one centavo to two sucres. A gold
Condor, (equivalent to 25 sucres) was also minted by the Birmingham mint making a total of eight different denominations minted for that year. The new sucre was nicknamed the
Ayora after the President. Likewise, the new silver 50 centavos coin became known as the
Lauritas after his wife Laura. The Sucre was worth 20 U.S. cents at the time.
The Ecuadorian government had contracted with the U.S. Mint for a total of 34,500,000 coins of various denominations to be struck at Philadelphia, all dated 1928. The mint struck these coins "at their convenience" starting with the silver 2 Sucres, 1 Sucre, and 50 centavos in early 1928 through August or September. The nickel 10, 5, and 2 1/2 centavos coins were struck next from October 1928 through April 1929, and finally the one centavo coins in April and May of 1929. The requested mintage of all denominations was fully struck with the exception of the one centavos. Only 2,016,000 of the requested 5,000,000 were actually struck. The centavos were shipped in 144 boxes to the Banco Centraol del Ecuador, Guayaquil by The Guaranty Trust Company of New York sometime between the beginning of June and the end of July 1929. This was the final shipment of 12 for all of the coins dated 1928.
Obverse
These coins were minted for the "Republica Del Ecuador" by the Philadelphia mint, however no mint marks were used on the minor coinage produced for Ecuador in Philadelphia. Ecuador dictated the various elements of their coat of arms, but the actual rendering of these elements by the various mints which produced their coins can vary greatly from mint to mint. In this case the central elements of the ship, water and mountain look more like an ocean going vessel sailing away from a mountainous coastline rather than the river steamship
Guayas, sailing the Guayas river with the snow capped Chimborazo volcano in the distant background. There is also no Caduceus appearing as a mast on the ship, an aspect which seems to have eluded all but one mint. The following is a depiction of the 1841 steamship
Guayas for comparison:
Reverse
The reverse of this coin is very simple, containing only the denomination
1 CENTAVO surrounded by a Laurel wreath.
This coin
This coin was purchased raw and self submitted to NGC. The first time I sent it in, it came back in a bag with a label proclaiming it as having been lacquered. I did some research, and found that it was not uncommon for coins of this era to be lacquered in order to preserve their color, but that it is fairly easy to remove. I sent it back to NGC with a stop at NCS for conservation. The second time, this beautiful MS65RD coin came back. The lacquer that had darkened over time preserved the original copper color, and it looks like it just popped out of the press. As of this revision, the NGC population in MS65RD is 4 with none finer, and only one with a higher numeric grade at MS66RB. It is a beautiful coin and well worth the second trip to Florida.
Date acquired: 8/26/2007
Date graded: 11/12/2012 (self submitted to NGC)
References:
Seppa, Dale and Anderson, Michael,
the COINS of ECUADOR (second edition), Almanzar's Coins of the World, San Antonio, 1973.
"Shipping Coins to Ecuador",
The Numismatist February, 1929, p. 63.
"Guaranty Trust Company Ships Coins to Ecuador",
The Numismatist August, 1929, p. 531.
Rev. 6/22/2020