Nicaragua as part of the Greater Republic of Central America 1896-1898

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Should the 5 centavos of 1898 from Nicaragua be cataloged differently from the 5 centavos of 1899?

From September 15, 1896 to November 21, 1898, Nicaragua was a state of the Greater Republic of Central America (renamed the United States of Central America on November 1, 1898); this was a union of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador--a partial "reunion" of states of the Central American Republic.

The union dissolved when a general seized control of the El Salvadoran government.

Before its dissolution, the Greater Republic of Central America did establish diplomatic relations with the USA.

(Above data from wikipedia.)

The 5 centavos of 1898 says "Estado de Nicaragua"; the 5 centavos of 1899 says "Republica de Nicaragua" (Republica is abbreviated.)

Also, it should be noted that both of these coins were minted in Waterbury, Connecticut, at the Scovill Manufacturing Company. This company primarily made buttons, but it also minted some coins and tokens (Hard Times Tokens and Civil War Tokens), and provided some planchets for U. S. 1 cent and 5 cent coins (1888-1906) struck at the Philadelphia Mint.

For confirmation, see "Foreign Coins Struck at U. S. Mints" by Altz and Barton (1965), pp 58-59.
In the catalogue they are listed separately:

5 centavos 1898 (KM# 8)
5 centavos 1899 (KM# 9)

Beside the legend, the specifications (weight and diameter) are slightly different.

Personally, I don't think we need to split into different periods, one for Estado and the other for República. In fact, "estado" doesn't say anything of the political regime, unlike "república". Some states ("estados") are republics, other monarchies, including constitutional monarchies, etc.

The "Greater Republic" lasted 20 days and was a failure (Nov. 1st─21st 1898) and so far as I can tell never had time to strike coins for the federation. It is therefore much better to keep the coinage under each separate country.
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Quote: "Camerinvs"
​The Greater Republic of Central America was ratified by the three states on September 15, 1896, and it established diplomatic relations with the USA.
On November 1, 1898, a new constitution was adopted, and the union was renamed "The United States of Central America". The union was terminated November 21, 1898.

The union lasted more than 25 months--definitely long enough to strike coins under the union. It is less likely to claim that all the Nicaraguan 1898 coinage was struck after November 21--and in that situation, there would have been no reason for Nicaragua to call itself a state (as it did on the 1898 coinage), vs. a republic (as it did on the 1899 coinage).
At the very least, it should be noted in the listing of the 1898 coinage why the country is suddenly styled as "Estado" when all the other 19th century Nicaraguan coins say "Republica".

The mint which struck the 1898 and 1899 coinage should be identified.
I had not noticed it was the only time they called themselves "Estado". Then yes, I agree, it would be worthwhile to add a comment under the 1898 issue, but some references to sources would be needed.

I just realized now I had missed what you wrote about the fact that the union lasted 25 months, but I understand that the formal foundation date was November 1st 1898. If the word "Estado" was used before the formal enactment at the end of the year, that would be rather unusual, unless the coins were meant to be issued only from November 1st.

Note that José Santos Zelaya was President from 1893-1909 without interruption, so far as I can tell. If so, the country never lost its independence.
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At this time, the only authoritative source that I have for this is the article on wikipedia.com for the Greater Republic of Central America. (The question being whether Numista recognizes wikipedia as an authoritative source. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia.)

The information in the article does fit well with the sudden change in Nicaraguan names between the 1898 and 1899 coinages struck at the same private mint.

Wikipedia also has another article regarding other attempts to "reunite" members of the Republic of Central America. Most of those attempts failed within one-six months.

Perhaps another member, with a Nicaraguan history book (or a numismatic book) can provide another source.
OK, so I see that the confederation existed for about two years, but the new constitution came into effect only on November 1st 1898.

I checked some Spanish sources which claim that each state remained independent. They came together only with regard to foreign policy. There seems to be very little written on that since the "Greater Republic"/"República mayor" was, in the end, so inconsequential.

Now, interestingly, Honduras did not change their coinage in any way during that period. They kept calling themselves República de Honduras". And El Salvador likewise. For some reason, only Nicaragua went from República to Estado.

But interestingly, the postage stamps tell another story. See here for Nicaragua, and there for El Salvador where "Estado" is used on stamps. Under República de Honduras you can read this, which is taken from the Wikipedia entry for Honduras (sorry, it's in Spanish; I added the bold, which says: The three republics converted themselves into states"):

«Algunos de los estados centroamericanos, intentaron varias veces la reconstitución de la República Federal de Centro América. Pero estas tentativas fracasaron y costaron la vida a varios de sus iniciadores. Un último intento se llevó a cabo, por influencia del Dr. Policarpo Bonilla, Presidente de Honduras, se celebró un tratado con Nicaragua y El Salvador, según el cual, las tres repúblicas constituyeron una federación bajo el nombre de República Mayor de Centro América.

Las tres repúblicas se convirtieron en estados, y la soberanía de la federación recayó en una Dieta compuesta por tres miembros, uno por cada estado, que había de reunirse cada año en la capital de los estados federales. Por invitación de esta Dieta, los tres estados nombraron una delegación que se reunió como Asamblea Constituyente en Managua, y estableció una Constitución, según cuyos términos los tres estados tomaron el nombre de Estados Unidos de la América Central, el 1º de noviembre de 1898.

Esta Constitución, que en la mente de aquellos que la habían formado significaba una consolidación de los tres estados federales y una pronta reorganización de la gran República de la América Central, soñada por Francisco Morazán, tuvo un triste fin. El día después de haberse reunido la Asamblea Constituyente, un movimiento revolucionario, hostil a la nueva federación, tuvo lugar en San Salvador, el cual dio por resultado una nueva administración en este estado. Su primer paso fue retirarse de la Unión, y esta separación ocasionó la disolución de los Estados Unidos de la América Central, pues, siguiendo el ejemplo de El Salvador, los estados de Honduras y Nicaragua reasumieron su soberanía.»

So, it looks like, indeed, the use of "Estado" by Nicaragua is linked to the formation of the Greater Republic, but there was no-one with a gun at your head to tell you to change the name on your coinage.
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I have another theory as to why Honduras and El Salvador did not issue "Estado" coins. Both of them have a plethora of overdates and counterstamped coinage in the 1800s, and this may indicate (a) a lack of expertise to create new dies, and/or (b) a lack of funds to pay for new dies. Honduras appears to have issued some coins in the period of 1896-98, but they were continuations of designs/dies used in prior years.

I noted only one coin issued by El Salvador in 1896, and it was of low mintage, and not a new design.

Nicaragua's copper-nickel 5 centavos coin was the first of that denomination in that alloy, so they needed new dies--therefore, why not "do it right" and use "Estado"?

When I started my "one-per-location" collection (in the 1970s), my interpretation was to include one for each time the name of the country changed (in many cases, this does flag a difference in government). For this reason, I noted the "Estado" vs. "Republica" on the Nicaraguan coins, and began investigating the reason for the change.

P.S.--I took Spanish in school, and I grew up in Texas, but I do not consider myself fluent in Spanish. I used Google Translate on the paragraphs you presented, and it gave a reasonable translation (compared to what I understood from reading it in Spanish).
Very interesting, halfdisme.

I don't know whether there are any specialized catalogues for those countries, where one would expect that this is explained. Or else I suppose there are articles in Mexican/Central/South American journals of numismatics. If not, that would be a great topic to do a small article on, bringing the postage stamps in the mix.

Unfortunately I don't know the numismatic societies of Latin America and their publications. Do they have their version of "The Numismatist" or "Canadian Journal of Numismatics"?

¡Hola, amig@s latin@-american@s! ¿Ustedes lo saben?
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One of the members of the Everycountry Collectors Group found the following documents related to the Greater Republic. Most of these have to do with the establishment, in 1896, of diplomatic relations with the USA.

http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1896/reference/frus.frus1896.i0016.pdf
Should the 5 centavos of 1898 from Nicaragua be cataloged differently from the 5 centavos of 1899?

Do you mean you want this coin under a new issuer (Greater Republic of Central America/United States of Central America)? If that's the case, I don't see no reason for splitting. There was no new country: the three members formed a union but all three stayed independent and struck their own coins, a bit like the European Union.
Your coin says "Estado de Nicaragua" not "Estado del Centro De America". There were no coins struck in the name of the union, every member struck their own coins. It isn't even sure the members accepted each others coins.
There was only a change in legend, from "Estado de Nicaragua" to "Republica de Nicaragua", not a change of country. Or do we also need another issuer for the 1980 coins like this one (https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces22005.html) when the legend changed from "East Caribbean Territories" to "East Caribbean States"? Don't mix up countries/issuers with legends.
I do not think it is necessary to establish a new country listing for the Greater Republic of Central America, and most catalogs list the coin under Nicaragua.

However, I do believe that it is quite appropriate to have a suitable notation in the 1898 listing, indicating that Nicaragua was, from 1896-1898, a member state of that union, and that is why the coin says Estado rather than Republica.

It would also be appropriate for there to be a separate line in the Nicaragua outline/timeline/subheadings for the Greater Republic of Central America.
Quote: "halfdisme"​However, I do believe that it is quite appropriate to have a suitable notation in the 1898 listing, indicating that Nicaragua was, from 1896-1898, a member state of that union, and that is why the coin says Estado rather than Republica.

​No problem at all with adding that notation in the 1898 listing. Creating a new issuer would have been a bridge too far.
The postage stamps are very instructive, I think, in the switch from República to Estado and back to República again after 1898. I tried to find some banknotes of the period, but nothing turned up for any of the three countries, though admittedly I didn't try very hard. But I did find a couple of books on eBay, including pictures for this one:





You may note that in the introduction not a word is said of the República mayor. Unfortunately, the 1898 pages are not shown... Here is the link (through picclick) and here is the volume in the same collection for El Salvador. The auction ends in two days, but they're likely to be relisted (perhaps at a lower starting bid).
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