Jackson Hard Times Tokens, Rulau 7 and 8
BillJones
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@spacehayduke asked me to post a commentary about these pieces at the Winter FUN show after he sold me a very choice example from his collection. As promised, here it is.
Andrew Jackson became an instant national celebrity after he lead forces that routed the British at the Battle of New Orleans. The size of the rout can be measured by the number of casualties. The Americans suffered 13 killed, 39 wounded and 19 missing. British reports vary, but the most often cited numbers are 291 killed, 1.262 wounded and 484 missing.
Although the battle was fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, it was still significant. If the British had won, they might have dragged their feet about leaving the area, therefore affecting the usefulness of the Port of New Orleans, which was an important economic terminal at the end of the Mississippi River. Jackson rode this military victory, along with his reputation as an Indian fighter all the way to the presidency.
In his 1832 re-election bid against Henry Clay, Jackson's supporters continued to point to his triumph at New Orleans. Two, very similar tokens that emphasized this are listed as HT 7 and 8. I have two of each of these tokens in my collection because no single piece is without issues.
HT 7
This is the sharper of the two pieces I have, but it has a hole. Advanced political items collectors don't get upset about holed pieces because it is an indicator that the piece was made for the presidential campaign. Pieces without holes were sometimes made and sold after the election to collectors. For example, a number of tokens from the campaigns in the 1850s were restruck for collectors in 1860.
Hard Times tokens usually are not holed, with a couple of exceptions. Therefore this piece is "damaged." I bought it cheap from Steve Hayden because of hole a number of years ago.
HT 8
This is the piece I purchased from @spacehayduke. NGC graded it AU-58. The grade is accurate although you will notice that the wording on the right side of the obverse is mostly missing. The wording is also missing on this piece, which is in an NGC "XF Details scratched" holder." I bought this piece in a Stacks sale before I purchased the high grade example.
Both varieties are scarce, but the HT 8 is the rarer of the two. Rulau rates the HT 7 as an R-5 (31 to 75 known), and the HT 8 as an R-6 (13 to 30 known).
It's hard to say why the token maker produced a second reverse die when the first did not seem to fail. The most noticeable difference between the two is the presence or absence of a period after "N" in "N Orleans" on the reverse. The HT 7 has a period after "N" while the HT 8 does not. The HT 7 also has a wider shield on the eagle's chest than the HT 8.
Comments
Thank you for the education, Bill. And I really liked your exhibit at the fun show.
@BillJones Nice write up as I've found all the Andrew Jackson Low 1 through 5 varieties to be extremely challenging within this series. Even third party straight graded all I've seen in hand were still somewhat problematic. I just saw a Low-5 I passed on graded as AU58 has since regraded as MS64. That being said at some point conditional sacrifices need to be made to obtain an example. Anyhow getting back to your newp it sold raw in the 1990 B&M sale of the Michael Brand Zeddies collection. He was the nephew of Virgil Brand who inherited his uncles HTT's then furthered collecting the series.
Thank you for the pedigree, @Broadstruck.
Great new information for me !!! thank you for the posts !!
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@BillJones .... Thank you for the pictures and background information. Cheers, RickO
To complete the cycle, here is the first example of this design that I acquired about 30 years ago. This one has its problems, which why you can see I purchased and kept the piece with the hole, which is an HT 7.
Thanks for sharing. Excellent info and history lesson for me. Have a good day. Peace Roy
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I have four of the five.
Low 1 This is my better one. It has no problems, but it wasn't cheap.
Here is my other Low 1, which is slightly different from the previous piece. Stacks once sold this one for $3,000. I bought it for a good deal less. There are not that many half way decent examples of Low 1, so it is possible to trace some of them.
I don't have a Low 2, probably because it's similar to Low 3.
Low 3 This one has some scratches on the reverse. It once belonged to an elderly collector, Herb Ocksner, who belonged to the New Jersey Numismatic Society. Stacks' sold it for $1,600 years ago. I bought it for a lot less.
Low 4
Low 5 we have seen.
And Low 6 is not exactly a soft touch.
@BillJones I really like your new Low-1