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With the new coins of 1791, the curled base 9 was used only at two mints, but not at Mexico City(half reales appear as an overdate 1791/0), but at Guatemala again and they also appear at the Potosi mint in Bolivia. These two mints used the unusual 9 variety most consistently, and every example from both mints uses the curled base 9 from 1791 through 1799, including both bust varieties at Potosi in 1792.
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| 1790 Nueva Guatemala: Curled Base and Regular 9 |
The other mint to use the curled base 9 during the 1790s was the mint at Bogota, Colombia with the mint mark NR, for Nuevo Reino (New Kingdom). In 1792, the standard 9 was used, but as a half real example from 1796 shows, and from other NR coin in other denominations, the curled base punch was used from 1793 onward. As the half reales from Bogota minted 1792-1799 are rather rare, more examples need to be viewed before a definitive statement can be made.
The only other use of the curled base 9 in the 1790s at any mint was again in Mexico City. In 1797, both 9 punches were used, which showed that the curled base punch was available in Mexico. Why it was not used more often, is not clear. The curled base 9 variety occurs with slightly more frequency than examples using the standard punch.
With the new century, there were only two more opportunities to use a 9 punch, 1809 and 1819. In 1809, only one mint used the curled base 9. The mint in Guatemala continued its use of the unusual punch, which it again repeated in 1819. In the end Guatemala consistently used the curled base punch from 1790 through 1819. It’s the only mint to show this consistency.
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