Home Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum

1860s era Rialto Base Ball Club early black baseball

Greetings from the coins side of the boards! I was wondering if anyone here might know about early (possibly very early) baseball history.

This is a two-cent coin engraved for the Rialto B. B. C. Yes, the United States made two cent coins for a brief period after the Civil War, from 1864-1873.

I have very little information about a Rialto Base Ball Club. Google has a few references to a very early black club with that name, organized in Detroit in the 1860s. [1] [2] [3]. There are also a couple of mentions to somewhat later clubs in Allentown, Pennsylvania (1907) [4] and Washington, DC (1923) [5]

I'd certainly love for this to be a piece of contemporary memorabilia for an 1860s black baseball club. It's a plus that the host coin is from the same period... or it could be just as likely that this coin was kicking around the back of someone's junk drawer and engraved much later.

So I have three questions that might or might not have answers...

Does anyone have a different or a better candidate for a Rialto Base Ball Club, beyond the ones I found?

The bottom of the engraved side of this piece has a P. C. in a border. Does anyone have a candidate for what that might possibly mean?

On the reverse of this piece, it looks like the T in CENTS has been intentionally removed. That leaves "2 CEN S"... which doesn't sound like anything to me. Does anyone have a candidate for what "2 CEN S" might mean, in a baseball context?

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.