SloanRanger

I'm new too, but I don't much about coins.

Posted 06 April 2012 - 11:45 AM According to popular legend, Texas Rangers wore badges cut from Mexico 5 Peso silver coins. To me, this is baloney. Am I wrong? Everyone love history and Texans do everything bigger than anyone else. The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 by Mike Cox; Forge (2008); $15.99 Was favorably reviewed in the Austin American Statesman in 2010 here. But we also know that tall tales are not history. I heard about this book from an artist I met when we were posted as security guards to the same site here in Austin. I told him that offhand, I thought the Mexican peso was pretty close to a US SIlver Dollar into the 20th century. When I got home, I looked it up. The SCWC shows nothing called "cinco pesos" that would pass for a silver dollar sized Mexican coin of the 19th to early 20th centuries. Maybe I overlooked something. Working in Albuquerque a few years back, I saw a lot of law officer badges cut from silver dollars and other large coins at coin shows and gun shows; and I rejected them all as forgeries. Not that such a thing could not be real on occasion, but like "brothel tokens" made from Large Cents, spurious "lumber tokens" and "slave badges" and "Western Assay Bars" fakes exist in abundance; and genuines might not exist at all. Any opinions on the Cinco Peso of the Texas Rangers? Hey Mike. That was me and I actually remember that conversation. You were very forthright and knowledgeable on coins- then as you are here. I am an artist, veteran and other things, but I'm also a contributor on a few of Mike's ranger books if you'll check the various acknowledgement sections. When Mike and I were researching Wearing the Cinco Peso and Time of the Rangers in 2007/ 2008 (originally one big book), I questioned the whole cinco peso tale and title of the book because there were no Mexican coins of this denomination until their 1947 minting, little documentation and few photographs of pre-1900 rangers displaying badges. In a well-written title note before the contents of the first book, Mike alludes to the Cinco Peso Cutting Legend, but states: "......at some point a Texas Ranger, perhaps adhering to Childress's measure, pulled his long knife and carved a star in a silver Mexican eight real piece........" then gives the cinco peso's mid 20th Century minting history. Mike then says: "The story may even be apocryphal", but cites an 1888 photograph of a known Texas ranger wearing a possible Mexican coin badge. I think it is "possible" that some late 19th Century rangers (mostly sergeants and officers) had special badges made from 8 real and one peso coins by jewelers, but it was not a widespread practice as many believe. You did set me straight- that artistic early rangers did not personally cut stars into 90-93% silver Mexican coins with a mere knife. Sloan Rodgers