2 Pesos Emiliano Zapata

Guerrero's 1915 emergency coinage was produced by the Zapatista forces controlling the region while the Mexican federal government had effectively collapsed in the south. The electrum composition — a gold-silver alloy — was not an ideological choice but a practical one: the Zapatistas used whatever metal was available, and consistent refining was impossible under wartime conditions. This accounts for the significant variation in alloy ratios found across surviving specimens.

Zapata himself was deeply skeptical of paper money, having watched peasants robbed by worthless currency after the Revolution of 1910. Coin was insisted upon.