The crisis of 1943

In 1943, during the Second World War, Mexico was again faced with a silver crisis. A combination of reasons - anticipation of a rise in the price of silver; the Mexican government’s agreement to sell practically its entire silver production to the United States for its military industry; and a boom in the Mexican and US jewellery industries - caused the price of silver to rise and silver coins to be hoarded. On 21 August Mexico imposed a heavy export tax on silver products, to make it unprofitable to melt down silver coins to ship as bullion, and temporarily suspended a contract which promised all surplus silver production to the United States. However because of a shortage of fractional coinage, especially the fifty centavos denomination, it was compelled to authorise banks to issue cheques with printed denominations of twenty- five and fifty centavos. while it arranged for the production of new coins.

Monterrey

Originally 50c cheques were issued by various factories and casas comerciales^{El Porvenir, Año XXV, Núm. 9647, 19 August 1943}. Thus, we known of cheques of the Cervecería Cuauhtemoc, S. A., the Empaques de Cartóon Titan, S. A., the Vidrio Plano, S. A., and the Hojalata y Lamina, S. A., drawn on the Banco de Nuevo León, S. A.and dated 12 August (Hojalata y Lamina also recorded dated 28 August).

Then on 19 August the Cámara de Comercio deposited funds in five local banks (the Banco de Nuevo León, S. A., Banco Nacional de México, S. A., Crédito Industrial de Monterrey, S. A., and Banco Comercial de Monterrey, S. A.)^{El Porvenir, Año XXV, Núm. 9647, 19 August 1943}. Notes are known dated 19, 20 and 28 August.

On 27 August the Correos y Telégrafos refused to accept the cheques of the Camara and various factories^{El Porvenir, 28 August 1943}. On next day Enrique Treviño García, manager of the Cámara, arranged with Salvador Chávez Sánchez, in charge of the Oficina Federal de Hacienda for them to be accepted by his offices^{El Porvenir, 28 August 1943} and on 29 the Cámara deposited some money with the Correos^{El Porvenir, 30 August 1943}.

By 1 September Miguel Margáin, secretary general of the Cámara, reported that they had issued $100,000 and had agree to issue even more^{El Porvenir, 1 September 1943}.

On 15 September it was reported that the Cámara de Comerciantes en Pequeño^{the manager was Rodrigo Noedal Fuentes (El Porvenir, Año XXV, Núm. 9675, 16 September 1943)} was considering an issue of $15,000 in 50c cheques drawn on the Banco Nacional de México^{El Porvenir, Año XXV, Núm. 9674, 15 September 1943}.

On 29 September Treviño García said that the banks were still changing deteriorated cheques for others of the same value or, in greater quantities, for banknotes^{El Porvenir, 29 September 1943}. The new fractional coinage did not arrive until 23 October^{El Porvenir, 24 October 1943}.