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Classic 1868-83

The quality of printing, alignment, etc. of stamps in this period did not improve over the preceding one -- they were still very poorly done. The biggest change one notices is that beginning in 1868 all denominations bear their values in 'cent' (short for centavos) rather than the earlier reales. (The brief-lived Maximillian stamp also used cents in 1866/67, but it was abbreviated as 'C' and they went back to reales and the old Hildalgo image from mid-1867 to September 1878.) These stamps were issued in September 1868 and continued to be used until April 1872. Some were preforated, others not.

The first issue of 1868 again features Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, but now he is facing directly out, or 'full face' rather than a profile or partial profile. His image is inside a circle, with 'Mexico' above and the value below the portrait. It was printed by lithographic process, which accounts in part for the poor quality of images produced.

The denominations were still differentiated by different colored papers, 6 centavos in orange-buff, 12 centavos in green, 25 centavos in buff-white (printed with blue ink), 50 centavos in yellow and 100 centavos in red-brown. All denominations other than the 25 centavos were generally printed in black ink, though some 100 centavo specimens were printed with brown ink and proofs were made in several colors.

There are two print varieties recognized for these issues -- 'Thin Figure' and 'Thick Figure' -- with the thin variety earlier. The 'figure' referred to is not the the portrait of Hidalgo, but the numerals that indicate the value of the stamp. When the stamp is clearly printed the 'Thick Figure' can also be distinguished by the fact that it has a period between the number and the word 'cent.'

As with the earlier issues, these stamps were not considered valid until stamped with the name of the district where they would be sold. Also, an additional security feature was added, overprints were added at the printer indicating the number of the district a particular batch of stamps were destined for, and the last two digits of the year they were printed in.

Forged copies of most early Mexican stamps are known, but this issue is notable because early forgers managed to produce copies using the original plates, though the inks and papers used were different from the authentic issues. It was, in fact, the existence of these forgeries that prompted the postal authorities to change stamps in 1872.

From 1872 until 1883, at least two different Hidalgo stamps were used, one showing a full profile portrait, the other a full profile image of a sculpted bust.

For the years 1879 until 1883 Mexico also had stamps that were just for use on mail destined for outside the country. These foreign mail stamps bore the image of Benito Juarez from 1879 to 1882. In 1882 they began to use the 'small numeral' or numeralito stamps, until the foreign stamps stopped being produced the following year.