Mexico: Coins Issued and Used

The Mexican Peso (symbol: $) is the currency of Mexico. Modern peso and dollar currencies have a common origin in the 16th - 19th century Spanish dollar (8 Reales), most continuing to use its sign "$" which originates from the design of the so-called "pillar dollar". The Peso is subdivided into 100 Centavos, represented by "¢".

The name was first used in reference to "pesos oro" ("gold weights") or "pesos plata" ("silver weights"): the Spanish word peso means "weight".

While the United States divided their dollar into 100 cents early on from 1793, post-independence Mexico retained the peso of 8 Reales until 1863 when the Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximillan commenced the minting of pesos divided into 100 centavos.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the Mexican peso remained one of the more stable currencies in Latin America. However, after the oil crisis of the late 1970s, Mexico defaulted on its external debt in 1982, and as a result the country suffered several years of inflation and devaluation. On 1 January 1993, the Bank of Mexico introduced a new currency, the Nuevo Peso ("new peso", with code MXN), written "N$" followed by the numerical amount. One new peso, or N$1.00, was equal to 1,000 of the obsolete pesos (code MXP).

The transition was done with minimal confusion by issuing the Series B "nuevo peso" banknotes in N$10, $20, $50, and $100 denominations with designs nearly identical to the corresponding banknote in the preceding Series A, which were labelled in old pesos; for Series B, the equivalent nuevo peso face value was 1/1000 of the old peso value for series A. From 1 January 1996, the "nuevo peso" was simply renamed to "peso", and new Series D banknotes were issued identical to Series C except for the word "nuevo" dropped.