Mexican Revolution Island, José María Liceaga

[Alex Island]

I became interested in this story after accidentally discovering a countermarked silver coin at an auction. It was written about a Mexican island, but there were many mistakes in the text. Therefore, I wanted to explore this issue and it turned out to be quite worthy of the attention of numismatists. To begin with, I will show what I discovered for the first time and what was written there:

It was written like this "isla Yuria" but this island does not exist. So I continued my research and search for the truth, which led to further discoveries.

[Alex Island]

Further exploration soon led me not to an island but to a lake in Mexico. And on this lake there is an island, but it has a completely different name. This is Yuriria Lagoon and Liceaga Island:

The provenance of this map is unknown, but the paper and writing style suggest that it was made soon after the War of Independence battle it portrays—the defeat and capture of an insurgent stronghold at Yuriria, Guanajuato, on November 1, 1812.

In the summer of 1812, the insurgents made Yuriria their northern headquarters, with José María Liceaga in command. They fortified two islands in the middle of Lake Yuriria, building up a military bunker, munitions factory, and printing operation. Rumored to be impenetrable, Isla Liceaga was no match for Colonel Agustín de Iturbide, who led royalist troops in a violent siege both from the mainland and via canoes and rafts. The battle was significant for both sides, promoting the career of Iturbide, who would seize power in independent Mexico in 1821, and strengthening the resolve of Liceaga and insurgent forces in the independence struggle.

Here is a more complete description and map:

[Alex Island]

Then I continued my research again and found out that not one but four types of counter-minted coins were minted on these islands:

On this map produced by royalist forces, the island retains the name "Ysla Liceaga". The fortification is carefully described in a Note on the right side of the map. The lower margin contains the description of the "Factories that were found on the two islands, with an expression of their sizes": the insurgents had established in their two fortified islands blacksmithing and carpentry workshops, an area for casting bullets "without finishing roof", coin factory with stoves "with four dies, one for pesos, another for pesetas, another for reales and another for medio". A furnace for melting cannons was located under a tiled roof. There was also "a house for a shop and bakery with an oven and dough"; "two square park pieces of 6 yards with their stone walls"; "an unfinished house for the island commander's room with three rooms"; a galley for the gunpowder factory and 54 tule barracks. And he clarifies a final note: "On the shores of the island there is a very thick tular."

(c) laguna de Yuriria e Ysla Liceaga ganada a los insurgentes el día 1o. de Noviembre de 1812

[Alex Island]

Then I began to explore again and mysteries arose again. Such an island with the name "Liceaga Island" is also not on the maps. And there is no information on Wikipedia in different languages either.. What to do about it? ..  

[Alex Island]

Further research showed that the old map greatly does not correspond to the real geography, and the name of the island now has a different designation: Isla de San Pedro

[Alex Island]

I became interested because I discovered a new island with coins. I was also interested in the message that there were four different types of countermarks on coins:

coin factory with stoves "with four dies, one for pesos, another for pesetas, another for reales and another for medio

I began to research and discovered a description of not four but seven different stamps:

[Alex Island]

What follows is even more interesting. I started looking in the archives and discovered other options.

Shown above are seven varieties that are distinguished by the letters in the bottom row. It says this:

S.M.
E
S.F.
VS
V.c
PG
Ds

But I see other letters in the archive. For example:

G.R.

[Alex Island]

Or I see a slightly different shape of the letters than in the drawing, for example:

D.S.

[Alex Island]

As a result, I managed to find a dozen and a half different samples. It was exciting.

Here are two examples with letters: V.c.

[Alex Island]

Most often I came across these letters: S.M.

But what's interesting is that out of the 8 discovered samples, I see not one but 4 varieties that differ in the shape or arrangement of the letters. I marked them with different letters in the photo: "A - B - C - D".

Sometimes it's nice to feel like an explorer: