Centennial of the Mexican Revolution Medal (2010)

This medal recalls the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution, whose starting point is set on November 20, 1910, when Francisco I. Madero called to arms against the regime of Porfirio Díaz. A hundred years later, in 2010, the country commemorated the anniversary with civic-military parades, public works, and a long series of allusive pieces.

The Centennial was celebrated in parallel with the Bicentennial of Independence, so 2010 concentrated a double patriotic celebration and an intense production of commemorative coins and medals, official and private.

Struck in bimetallic format, this medal joins the mementos issued for the occasion. Its appeal is mainly thematic: it encapsulates one of the processes that most marked 20th-century Mexico and its first century of memory.

The Centennial of the Mexican Revolution medal was struck by the Mexico City Mint in 2010, within its Trimetallic Series, to close out the cycle of a hundred years since the 1910 movement. It is the thematic sister of the Bicentennial of Independence medal, issued the same year in the same three-metal format.

What it shows. Both faces share the legend "REVOLUCIÓN MEXICANA" on the outer ring. One face carries a soldadera (an Adelita) beside a horse, with a train in the background, the dates "1910-2010" and the motto "SUFRAGIO EFECTIVO, NO REELECCIÓN"; the Mo mint mark can be made out. The other face bears a peasant's hand holding an ear of corn and tools, the Zapatista motto "TIERRA Y LIBERTAD," the word "CENTENARIO" below, and a row of marching peasants. The piece is easy to recognize by its three concentric rings of different colors, the result of the trimetallic construction.

What the Trimetallic Series is. They are commemorative medals of three joined metals: brass, cupronickel, and brass again at the center (fineness 95-5 / 75-25 / 70-30). They are not legal-tender currency, do not circulate, and have no face value. They measure 50 mm, weigh 52.304 grams, with a plain edge and a satin finish with contrasting fields.

Value and collecting. Being a medal and not a coin, its price is a collector's price: condition rules, along with keeping the original case and demand for the revolutionary subject. This issue is sold out from the start, so it is found only on the secondary market. Compare before closing a deal in the shops directory or ask in the forum what people are paying for it.