What happened to this 8? 1980 Mexico 1 Peso

tlhoy

I have 3 1980 Mexican 1 Pesos.
This one has a weird 8! Die break, damage, or what?
Thanks,
Glenn

Askari

I think it's been repunched ... there seems to be another numeral underneath. In fact, although I can't be sure, it looks like there are faint ghosts of other numerals under the 9 [an 8?] and displaced to the left of the 0 [a 0?].

lordmarcovan

It's an "open 8" variety. There are a few other years they did that, I believe. They had two distinct numeral styles. (And I think the Open 8's are worth a teeny bit more than the regular 8's, but don't remember for sure, off the top of my head.)

theboz11

The 8 looks like a broken die punch, though I've never seen one do that. the 9 and th 0 look punched as stated above. A couple extra pieces of metal one in the 8 and one on the 0 look to come from dies strike. I would send that off as an error coin variety.

tlhoy

Here's another picture!
The first half of the date.

tbirde56

The open 8 variety is worth more and had a mintage of 23.865 million compared to the closed 8 variety with 318.8 million minted. Same variety can be found with the 1978 and 1981 dates.
My World Coin Varieties Page.

lordmarcovan

It's a separate Krause variety (within the same KM number, KM460 in my old volumes.)
I was correct; there are open 8 and closed 8 varieties for both 1980 and 1981.

I doubt a grading service would slab them as an "error"- they are more of a minor variety. In any event, though the open 8's are worth more than the closed 8's, they aren't that valuable.

Here are the ten-year-old values from my ANA Centennial Krause (for VF/XF/UNC/BU):

1980 closed 8: $0.15/0.25/0.80/0.90
1980 open 8: $0.50/1.50/6.00/9.50

1981 closed 8: $0.20/0.30/0.75/1.00
1981 open 8: $0.50/1.00/7.00/8.50

As I recall from the 2002 I have at home, the prices have not changed that drastically.