Souvenir Peso Type III, Date closely spaced

The Souvenir Pesos of 1897 were struck not by any Cuban authority but by Gorham Manufacturing Company in Providence, Rhode Island, as fundraising pieces for the Cuban independence movement then fighting Spain. Type III is distinguished by the closely spaced date numerals — a die characteristic that separates it from the wide-date variety and confirms a distinct die marriage, not a simple re-use.

Gorham produced these in small quantities for Cuban exile committees operating largely out of New York and Florida. The closely spaced date is the scarcer of the two configurations.