2 Centavos Tetela del Oro y Ocampo

Tetela del Oro y Ocampo issued its own copper coinage in 1915 because the Mexican Revolution had so thoroughly disrupted the national money supply that hundreds of municipalities, haciendas, and military factions began producing their own emergency tokens. The federal mint system had effectively collapsed under competing Constitutionalist, Villista, and Zapatista forces, and local commerce required something — anything — to make change. These municipal issues are among the most localized artifacts of that monetary breakdown, produced by a small mining town in the Sierra Norte de Puebla with limited technical resources.