Lot 1142
Mexico - Chihuahua. Revolutionary Period – Peso, 1915. KM-619; Y-R3; Guthrie et al., Mexican Revolutionary Coinage, no. 72. Army of the North. Liberty cap, rays behind. Reverse: Eagle atop cactus, seizing snake. Finely, and sharply struck, a particularly choice example of this type. Clean fields, and soft luster under handsome old toning. NGC graded MS-64.
Pancho Villa, without a doubt, was one of the most colorful of the many leading characters who played out their parts in the Mexican Revolution - and one of the few to have remained in the memories of the American public. While his name was blackened in the American press, he was actually a more complex individual than the vicious and loathsome marauding bandit that sometimes filled the headlines of U.S. newspapers during the second decade of the last century. To his countrymen of the lower and disenfranchised classes, he was one of the most popular of their leaders during their decade of insurrection and political struggle. As a revolutionary, the bandit leader became the leader of the famed Division el Norte -- the largest army of the insurgents, and which numbered over some 8000 individuals at its peak. In his prime, Villa exhibited an inexhaustible energy, military boldness, personal courage and incorruptibility, that inspired the loyalty of his peasant army and devotion of those who benefited from his "Robin Hood" largesse. On the other hand, the politically unsophisticated Villa was for a time an often easy victim of the manipulations of the conservative Madero, who used Villa to disarm his rival revolutionaries.
Estimated Value $400 - 500.
Ex Norweb Collection.
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| Realized $920 |
