Cuba 5 Pesos Gold Coin - Jose Marti design (Minted 1915-1916)
COIN CONTAINS .2419 OUNCES OF PURE GOLD
Produced only for two years, 1915 and 1916, Cuban 5 peso gold coins are in very limited availability because of their extremely low original mintages and even lower survival rates. On the obverse is a portrait of Jose Marti, one of Cuba’s greatest poets and freedom fighters; on the reverse is the traditional shield of Cuba.
Fascinating history, ripe market
Fifty years ago Cuban gold coins were almost impossible to find in the United States. In the 1960s, refugees from Castro’s regime started to arrive with these coins as part of their life savings. Still quite scarce today, they’ve found a ready market among collectors of latin and world gold coins, who prize them for their unique history and severely limited production.
One fascinating fact about these coins is that they were actually minted by the U.S. at Philadelphia Mint on behalf of the Cuban government. In fact, the 5 peso and 10 peso Jose Marti gold coins were struck on the same gold blanks used for minting the classic U.S. $5 Indian and $10 Indian coins, giving those Cuban gold coins precisely the same specifications as their U.S. counterparts. It’s a fitting twist of history that the coins used by so many Cubans to finance their flights to freedom were actually produced by the U.S. Mint!
A generation later, many Cuban-Americans and their families, now well-established here in U.S., are buying up these unique Jose Marti gold coins as reminders of their own heritage and fight for freedom.