1987 Libertad KM530 question (gold 1/20)

penny4yourthoughts

Anyone know anything about this piece? For better or worse, I just picked up the highest graded PCGS example. How rare are the 88's or the 1/15th ouncers?

pruebas

These are all rare. I have never seen the 88s, and suspect they are very rare.

I heard these were all made for one company (possibly Colonial Coins in Houston???) for jewelry or something like that.

penny4yourthoughts

I called Don Bailey today and asked him about these coins. He said that they were minted for Colonial Coin by the Mexican mint. Colonial went bankrupt and a majority of them were held by a creditor, who had them melted to recoup their funds. I got the impression that those that are left were those that were sold before the bankruptcy, which was likely not many. Don said that mintage records were probably destroyed in the bankruptcy and the Mexican mint supt from the time didn't have any idea as to the mintages...and the owner of Colonial has passed on. He said they are rare to find. He believed that there were 7 different types made, 2 of them BU and the rest proof. He has a new book set covering Mexican coming out soon and this information should be in there.

pruebas

Thanks for following up on this. That sounds like the story as I heard it. Don would know--he used to work for Dr Vogt at Colonial.

I've got 2 or 3 of the 1987 gold 1/15 oz. in UNC. Bought them on ebay back in the late 1990s for just over melt.

WhiteTornado

Not only a cool-sounding coin, but with some interesting history behind it too. Thanks for sharing.