Coins can be collected in various manners: coins for circulation versus coins for collectors, individual coins versus sets or rolls, circulated coins versus mint state, every date and mint mark versus major types. This Web site presents information to help with assembling a "type" collection of individual circulated Mexican coins.

What is "type" collecting? Type collecting is assembling coins of different designs. A type set generally excludes minor variations that include the same basic design. Examples are date change, and mint marks. Major variations in coin composition (such as a switch from silver to copper-nickel) constitute a type change, but a minor variation (such as a change in number of beads at the rim) do not represent a type change.

Different collectors will have their own opinions of what coins should be included in a type collection. The following is my interpretation of significant year-to-year changes in Mexican circulating coins. I have only included coins of the republics, not the two empires, and not individual state coins. I am unsure of the state/federal status of some coins of the 1820s-1860s.

The monetary system of the United Mexican States proceeded as follows:

• 1823-1871?
  • 16 Reales = 1 Escudo
• 1863-1992
  • 100 Centavos = 1 Peso
• 1992-date
  • 100 Centavos = 1 Peso
  • 1 New Peso = 1000 Old Pesos

1/16 real	Starting with 1831-1833
1/8 real	Starting with 1829
1/4 real	Starting with 1829-1837
1/2 real	Starting with 1824
1 real	Starting with 1824
2 reales	Starting with 1824
4 reales	Starting with 1827-1870
8 reales	Starting with 1823-1824
Half escudo	Starting with 1825-1870
One escudo	Starting with 1825-1870
Two escudos	Starting with 1825-1870
Four escudos	Starting with 1825-1869
Eight escudos	Starting with 1823
One centavo	Starting with 1863
Two centavos	Starting with 1882-1883
Five centavos	Starting with 1863-1870
Ten centavos	Starting with 1863-1870
Twenty centavos	Starting with 1898-1905
25 centavos	Starting with 1869-1890
Fifty centavos	Starting with 1869-1895
One peso	Starting with 1869-1873
Two peso	Starting with 1919-1948
2 1/2 pesos	Starting with 1870-1893
Five pesos	Starting with 1869-1905
Ten pesos	Starting with 1869-1905
Twenty pesos	Starting with 1869-1905
25 pesos	Starting with 1968
Fifty pesos	Starting with 1921-1947
One hundred pesos	Starting with 1977-1979
Two hundred pesos	Starting with 1985
Five hundred pesos	Starting with 1986-1990
One thousand pesos	Starting with 1988-1992
Five thousand pesos	Starting with 1988

References:
- 1994 Standard Catalog of World Coins, by Chester L. Krause and Clifford Mishler, 1993.
- 2006 Standard Catalog of World Coins, by Colin R. Bruce II, 2005.