Recently, scientists at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru encountered a major problem.
In studying economics and the use of money by the Peruvian people over the centuries, they came across a coin that shouldn't have been coined.
It is an item that represented 10 Peruvian cents and was commonly known at the time as “Dinero.”
Scholars received some examples from local dealers and at first glance the pieces appeared perfect, but there was a small problem that made all the difference.
All units bore the date 1899, and that year the country's mint produced no pieces of that value.
Therefore, the results were sent to the facility's chemistry laboratory for more detailed analysis of the components, and the results were revealing.
Coin puzzle solved?
Counterfeit units obtained by researchers Image: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru/Reproduction
After extensive testing, it turned out that the scientists were confronted with counterfeits. As already mentioned, with the naked eye coin It looked real as it had the same size, color and other characteristics as an original copy.
But when the objects were subjected to an Xray session and some light measurements, they were found to be made of copper, zinc and nickel, which together formed an alloy called German silver. In short, it resembles silver but has nothing like it.
According to experts, this type of metal is often used to make cutlery, but not to mint official coins, as the Peruvian Mint only works with pure silver.
The most detailed results of the studies were published in the journal Heritage Science, but the story still had unanswered questions. For example, we still don't know who might have made these forgeries and what the reasons were.
The researchers plan to seek help from a collector which has a large collection of various coins from 1830 onwards in order to have access to other monetary units from 1899 onwards.
The next plan is to investigate the case together with historians. Therefore, the most acceptable answer to date to the existence of the pieces lies in the economic situation in which Peru found itself at that particular time.
The country had just been defeated in the Pacific War and had to repay a large amount of international loans taken out to finance the conflict.
Therefore, the government was more concerned about issuing paper banknotes.
Finally, the most widespread theory is that some fraudsters took advantage of the situation to produce inferior items that circulated more easily among poor people, especially in openair markets.
In this way he would have more easily caused harm to many unwary people.