Interesting Pair of 1863 One Country - Broas Pie Baker Tokens

USA240

The Token on the left looks normal - The Token on the right is odd looking.
Both Tokens have the same Words and Lettering on one side.
The one on the right has basically the same information on each side, but has what appears to be clash marks from a different Die that is similar to the one on the left?

ricko

Interesting... We have seen a lot of store tokens here lately....Are people cleaning out their coin boxes? Cheers, RickO

Namvet69

Well it looks like serious die failure and it could be stamped over an actual coin. Or die clash. IMO. Peace Roy

Sonorandesertrat

Faint clash marks, especially feather tips, on the reverse of that token are not unusual. What are unusual are the evident clash marks from more than one die clash, combined with the terminal reverse die state.

ChangeInHistory

Looks familiar, I forgot to image the other side

seanq

That is a relatively common token, I have seen the clashed reverse die before, though not muled with another reverse. Cool find.

Sean Reynolds

tokenpro

The three One Country dies in the OP are all different -- note the placement of the H above the T of ST and note the dots underneath ST.

The 630L-16 and -17 varieties are often found with heavily clashed dies as noted in the CW Patriotic catalog -- many of the Broas dies were used long past their expected life span including one reverse die that shattered in place but continued to be used.

BillJones

The top two were struck with different dies. Look at the spacing of the lettering. The die numbers are 29315 for the top left, 29320 for the top right and 29310 for the second row, right.

The dies for these tokens were clashed and injuried many times. The "Indian cent" detail you see is from a clashed die, not the under type from a host coin.

Here is the most famous of the injuried die pieces. How they got as many tokens out of this badly broken obverse die is anyone's guess. This piece is not at all rare.

SaorAlba

Wonder if their pies were any good?

Icollecteverything

I have one that appears to be the same as the one on the right in the OP. I think the side with the clash and the die cracks is a slightly later state and it also has a slight die rotation. I bought it at a show in 1987. I could not find the die combination listed in the books that I had at the time and have not seen any of the newer books. My best guess at that time was that it was a combination of dies 630-m-8 and 630m-2.

I have another Broas piece with the Indian side having a spectacular shattered die similar to the one Bill Jones posted but in white metal and possibly a different die.

I wonder how much the pies cost?

tokenpro

In the current 3rd Edition of the CW Store Card catalog the NY 630L (Broas Bros.) and NY 630M (Broas Pie Bakers) from the 2nd Edition have been combined into one merchant listing under NY 630L. The previous 630M-1 through -13 listings are now 630L-6 through -18. Broas is still a messy merchant when it comes to varieties -- not Boutwell messy but still messy.

USA240

Thank you everyone for your comments and observations!
I always wondered why there isn't more interest in this area of the hobby.
What would the best available book or books on the subject to get for future reference?

1775

I don't care if they are common/ they are way cool! I would take as many shattered die coins as possible.

BillJones

Why isn’t there more interest in Civil War tokens?

They aren’t coins.

tokenpro

@USA240 said:
Thank you everyone for your comments and observations!
I always wondered why there isn't more interest in this area of the hobby.
What would the best available book or books on the subject to get for future reference?

The 3rd edition of the Civil War Store Cards catalog and the 6th edition of the Civil War Patriotic Token catalog are the most recent editions of the standard catalog for each series. Each is in full color and just a couple years old. A link to the Civil War Token Society book page below will give you more information -- note that if you join the CWTS you get discounted prices (some free!) on the standard catalogs and other publications that more than make up for the nominal membership cost. If you have questions contacts are listed on the page (or ask here). You can mention that tokenpro referred you to the site.

http:cwtsociety.com/books.shtml//

DCW

@BillJones said:
Why isn’t there more interest in Civil War tokens?

They aren’t coins.

Well, they're not coins in the literal sense of the word, but they are metal, round, and coin shaped.
To me, they are a whole lot more interesting than the variety of date/mm of a US "coin."

sellitstore

I consider tokens to be privately issued coins. Maybe that's because currency is currency whether government or privately issued.

Zoins

@BillJones said:
Why isn’t there more interest in Civil War tokens?

They aren’t coins.

That's certainly one reason.

I think another is that it's not easy to choose a well-defined, reasonably sized set to work on until completion. To make Civil War Tokens more enticing, it has to be much easier to understand what subsets are and what completion means.

To start, I think it would be good to break down Civil War Tokens by patriotics, state and city. With such lists, one should easily be able to look up a lists of all types (in copper) by patriotics, state and city. After that, it should be easy to work on completing those sets. It would be nice if there were registry sets set up this way as well.

At least it should be easy to complete some cities. A sense of progress and completion is important.

Icollecteverything

Thank you tokenpro for the information. I used to be a member of the CWTS, I wonder if they would give me back my old number?

There are many different reasons that people collect civil war tokens including the history, hundreds of different designs and relative scarcity. Many other collectors choose to stick to US Mint issues. I think one important thing about CWTs is that they were were really used as money. Even though they were unauthorized they filled a need and circulated quite widely. Probably more than any other tokens in US history.