100 Pesos Pattern, Mariposa Monarca, brass

Patterns issued by the Casa de Moneda de México in the late 1980s were rarely authorized for circulation and exist today almost exclusively in institutional or specialist collections. This particular brass striking was part of a broader exploration of monarch butterfly imagery during a period when Mexico was actively considering new circulating designs ahead of peso redenomination — the currency crisis of the mid-1980s had rendered low-denomination coins effectively worthless, and the government was under pressure to rationalize the coinage structure entirely.

The 1988 redenomination ultimately replaced the old peso series at 1,000:1. Most pattern work from this transitional period never advanced beyond trial strikes.