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Am I the only one who's been thinking about Hard Times Tokens lately?
jayPem
Posts: 4,082 ✭✭✭✭✭
My curiosity has perhaps turned the corner and may now be an interest..🤔
Who are the aficionados here?
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I have several and the are several people here that collect them. Broadstruck is an in depth
collector and quite passionate. Nice to see another member start
into them. Any particular ones that draws your attention?
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This is a wallpaper I made years ago,
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Although classified as a HTT it was not struck till much later. This was one of my latest purchases.
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And this was just before The above one.
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
I too am developing the interest.
I have not.... However, I did ask my wife - she has not thought of them at all...asked me what they were
Checked with my neighbors, they said "Stay home."... 
So no thoughts in this area...Cheers, RickO
Ok, pretty sure you've done your very best to answer my question.
Much appreciated. You are no longer required to think about these tokens if you don't want to..😅
At one time I owned several. I always found them interesting but at the same time was never willing to spend much money on them. They were strictly a secondary interest.
Seen a few and even bought a few. I did not get too swept up in them because of other distractions in this hobby. But you know how our "collecting" mentality works.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
From time to time I pick up an example. Trying to stick to high AU and MS examples.
Yeah, I think these check alot of boxes for me!
Early 19th century, entertaining artistic design, great historical interest... gorgeous, cheap and plentiful in VF to XF.. grades that excite me since they were obviously used for something...
Plentiful and inexpensive reference material!
I'm in!
Now, please start offering me your extras 😊
I think Hard Times tokens are great! As I am primarily focusing on Civil War tokens right now, I currently have four hard times in my collection but I plan on pursuing them more seriously in the future.
ANA-LM, CWTS-LM, NBS, TAMS, ANS
I became interested in HTT's by way of Broadstruck. I have acquired a few from him, and he has steered me towards some nice ones from other sellers. I like a lot of the designs, some are pretty sophisticated, some rather crude (which makes them even more interesting imo), they all have historic connotations. And they won't (mostly) break the bank. A couple of favorites:
Very nice tokens everyone let’s see some more. We need another collector interested in these.
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
I thought about collecting them, but have decided to start collecting Conder tokens.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Frankly, I doubt very much I will ever "collect" any series exclusively or with an eye toward completion again..
A nice selection of hard times tokens blends into a few great civil war tokens, merchant stamps, love tokens, engraved pieces, hobo nickels etc etc...the interest being a view of Americana in coin form rather than a set of coins.
But I've been at this point for years now actually. It's my sweet spot..
I still buy and sell nice coins, but my "real" collection nowadays is raw and resides in a cabinet 😊
I collect the political pieces. I have at least a set representative sent (constration on slogans). I post some material over the next few days.
Really great stuff Kaz!
And @coinsarefun and @CWT1863 of course 😊
I'd love to see more @Billjones!
I have been “thinking about Hard Times tokens” for many years. I have a fairly decent collection of the political pieces. To me the best part about a coin, token or medal is when it has a good story. Here are four Hard Times tokens, a.k.a. “HTTs”. Two are common varieties and two are scarce and expensive. I hope that this “wets your appetite.”
Low 51 is one of the most common HTTs. It satirizes Andrew Jackson’s monetary reforms, stubbornness and the fact that Harvard University awarded him with an honorary degree.
The obverse shows Jackson emerging from the strongbox brandishing a sword and holding a bog of money. This refers to Jackson’s policy to reduced the weight of U.S. gold coins to a level where they could circulate within the United States.
At the same time, Jackson hoped to drive most of the paper money out of circulation. The banks during this period were charted by the states and usually poorly regulated. The value of the paper money they issued was frequently suspect. Jackson thought that it would be best for farmers and wage earners to conduct their transactions with gold and silver.
The reverse satirizes Jackson’s veto of a bill that would have given The Bank of the United States a new charter. The bank had been chartered in 1816 and was one of the stabilizing factors in the U.S. economy.
The Jack ass with the “LLD” on its belly is a bad pun on Jackson’s name. People who didn’t like Jackson considered him to be very stubborn, like a mule. The “LLD” refers to an honorary Doctor of Law degree that Harvard awarded to Jackson. Harvard alums, like John Quincy Adams thought this was outrageous. In their opinion, Jackson was an ignoramus who could barely write his name.
This is Low #19. This token is also quite common. There are few varieties of a similar design. One of them is quite scarce.
During Jackson’s “bank war” against The Bank of the United States, he had his secretary of the treasury (He had to hire and fire a few of them before he could find one would do it.) remove all of the Federal Government’s deposits from the bank and deposit them in a group of state banks. Jackson’s opponents call them “pet banks.”
Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren soon discovered that the “pet banks” were unreliable. When they closed or went bust, the government’s money went with them. The alternative was to have the Congress authorized the Sub Treasury System which took care of the government’s receipts and payments. Here Jackson’s opponents accuse it of being “slow pay” with a turtle bearing a strong box.
The reverse is a sequel to the previous token. Martin Van Buren was Jackson’s protégé and successor. In his inaugural address, Van Buren said that he “was following in the illustrious footsteps of my predecessor.” Since Jackson had been depicted as a jack ass, Van Buren and Jackson’s opponents, who would soon call themselves the Whig Party, showed him as a jack ass too.
This is Low #1. There are several variations of this variety with slightly different Jackson portraits in different metals. All of them rare and expensive.
This is “the holy grail” of Hard Times Tokens. I have tried to upgrade this piece without success. The last time, I was the underbidder to someone who paid $10,000 + the buyer’s fee in an auction. The prices have been higher than that at various times. All it takes a few guys with lots of money entering and leaving the market to drive the prices up and down for this piece and the other rarities.
On the reverse, “The bank must perish” refers to Jackson’s war with The Bank of the United States and its new charter. In the end, the bank didn’t get its Federal charter, but it did continue as a state bank. It went broke circa 1840 because of bad loans connected with west land speculations.
“The Union must and shall be pre-served” which is weakly struck on this piece, refers to the nullification crisis. During the early years of our country, there are high tariffs which protected American companies from foreign competition. The South ended up paying higher prices from the goods they imported from abroad because of those taxes and got few of the benefits.
Lead by vice president and later senator, John C. Calhoun, South Carolina argued they could nullify any federal law that went against their interests. Jackson firmly informed them that they couldn’t and threaten to hang Calhoun and send federal troops in to enforce the law. Calhoun, perhaps fearing for his life, backed down. Later the tariffs were lowered although they remained at protection levels.
Here is another very scarce, pro Whig Party token. This one is very nice. They don’t get much better than this one. This piece is worth a few thousand dollars.
The Whig Party was the opposition to Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party. The main thing that held them together was their intense dislike for Jackson. Other than that, the party didn’t have a lot of “glue” to keep it together. It would fall apart in the 1850s over the slavery issue.
On July 4, 1834, the Whigs held a big rally in New York City. One of the attractions was a ship, called “The Constitution” that they dragged up Broadway. Ships would become one of the most familiar symbols for the party in print and on other HTTs.
The reverse speaks about “a great Whig victory,” but all I can find out about that was that the Whigs were able to give the Democrats a run for their money in a New York City mayoral race that year. They sill lost.
Elections were a blood sport in those days. Ballot boxes were stuffed and ballots were destroyed. People got into fist fights over politics, and one poor fellow ended up dead. As a book from years ago was entitled, "The Good Old Days … They were Terrible."
With this issue the story is not over yet.
Major write up Bill, Enjoyed every word!
The history of the individuals who were responsible for the engraving and minting of some of these, is that known at all?
One imagines the various factions involved in the creation of these, the fired up politicos of their day, actually stamping away with antique screw presses squirreled away in back alley sheds and basements..😄
I still haven't pulled the trigger on any of the easy ones I'm planning to snap up, but I do have some literature on the way!