Owner Comments:
Ecuador - 1895 T.F. Philadelphia - Dos Decimos (KM #51.4, EC #181) - Mintage: 5,000,000
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.
This was the first coin struck by the Philadelphia mint for Ecuador, and it is the only U.S. minted Ecuadorian coin I am aware of where a proof version was also minted. I have been unable to find any record of how many proofs were minted though.
Obverse
The distinctive portrait on the obverse of this coin is that of Antonio José de Sucre. Sucre was born in 1795 in Venezuela, and from the age of 15, spent the next 20 years fighting for independence from Spanish rule. During this time he became a collaborator of Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan general, and the first constitutional president of Bolivia, all before the age of 35. Sucre led the patriots to a decisive victory at the battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822, effectively freeing Ecuador from Spanish rule. His life was cut short on June 4, 1830 when he was assassinated while on his way to Quito. Sucre was laid to rest in his own Mausoleum Chapel in the Cathedral of Quito. He is considered the liberator of Ecuador, and appears on many Ecuadorian coins.
Reverse
The reverse of this coin has a number of interesting features:
- Following the tradition set by the Quito mint, the name of the city where this coin was minted appears at the bottom under the coat of arms. In this case, PHILADELPHIA giving this coin the distinction of being the first circulating coin minted by the Philadelphia mint to bear a mark specifically indicating Philadelphia as the mint of origin.
- The denomination is DOS DECIMOS DE SUCRE. (20 centavos)
- The weight and fineness of the silver content is explicitly stated as 5G. and 0.900 (fine) with the balance in copper.
- Continuing the tradition of the Quito mint, every coin produced bore the initials of the assayer who was responsible for the quality of the coinage. In most Latin American mints however, these initials represent two different officials, generally the chief assayer and his deputy. It would appear that the U.S. mint was unaware of this tradition and the significance of the letters T.F. which appear to the lower right of the coat of arms on the sample coin they were give from the mint in Lima, Peru. These Lima mint assayers initials T.F. were simply copied onto the reverse die created by the Philadelphia mint and appear on all of the Dos Decimos coins minted by Philadelphia.
- Ecuador dictated the various elements of their coat of arms, but the actual rendering of these elements 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:
This coin
This coin is a really beautiful, well struck, uncirculated example of this issue. The obverse and reverse dies appear to have been nearly new. It really seems like it should have attained a higher grade.
Date acquired: 11/22/2019 (Raw coin)
Date graded: 8/4/2020 (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.
Rev. 9/6/2020