103388 | UNITED STATES & MEXICO. Return of El Chamizal silver Medal.

103388  |  UNITED STATES & MEXICO. Return of El Chamizal silver Medal. Issued 1963. Commemorating the talks to end the dispute (50mm, 12h). By Baron [Central de Numismática y Medalistica] in Mexico City.

 

JUSTICIA REVOLUCIONARIA DE PUEBLOS AMIGOS, facing statue of Benito Juárez, seated and with scroll; to left and right, heads of presidents Adolfo López Mateos and John F. Kennedy facing one another // RECUPERACION DEL TERRITORIO DEL CHAMIZAL, Mexican and American flags crossed in saltire; above, stylized outline of the Chamizal territory and compass.

 

Rice K-63-5A; Grove 828a. PCGS SP-63. Highly brilliant and lustrous, with some deeper amber and cobalt toning nearer the peripheries.

 

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended the Mexican-American War in 1848 and established the border between the two nations. For a portion of this border, the path of the Rio Grande (known as the Río Bravo del Norte in Mexico) served as the point of demarcation. Floods, however, caused the pathway to vary over the years, with a section between El Paso (Texas) and Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua) shifting south, essentially yielding additional territory to the United States. This area, becoming known as "El Chamizal" on account of the type of saltbush that grew on the plain, was subsequently disputed by both countries, with the U.S. claiming and settling it as an extension of El Paso. A talk was planned in 1909 between then-presidents William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz, but the foiling of a would-be assassination attempt on both leaders scuttled the summit. The matter was settled in principal in August 1963 by John F. Kennedy and his counterpart, Adolfo López Mateos, though it was not ultimately formalized until the following year between the latter and Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy having been assassinated in Dallas in November 1963.

 

Upload: 20 January 2026.