French token question

Blackhawk

I bought two of each of these tokens. The first, I believe, was some sort of replacement or emergency money in France during WWI, the second is about the size of a US half dollar and made of brass. It is marked on one side with C.C. Sporrong & Co., Stockholm. I believe that that company made jewelry and military medals. Can anyone shed some light on either piece?

rhound1977

They look pretty neat, but I can't help.....

sumnom

I concur with rhound.

Aethelred

I believe the second one is from Sweden. The first looks like it may be either a "good for" token or a transport token.

MadMuffin

In Sweden the name Sporrong is associated with industry - the company is in the metal business. Here is their webpage:

Sporrong

I believe that they also make medals, not just for military purposes, but also to sell as commemoratives. I have a medal myself that is marked "Sporrong" - a Danish art medal from the 70s.

Perhaps if you email the company someone will know about that token. I'm not sure it was actually used in the company. It may just be a transportation token. Such tokens were widely used in Sweden some decades ago.

Hope this helps.

Marcel

Askari

Sporrong has indeed produced art medals and I presume it stil does. The French piece is a notgeld coin. Late in the war, most of the major powers were having problems with the availability of small change. Often this was satisfied with paper issues, but some areas (usually those furthest from the front) issued metal notgeld. There exists no single reference on French notgeld, although there are monographs on the issues for various departments and cities.

Conder101

The first piece is a piece of French Notgeld from the region of Provencale. (I believe it was a co-operative issue by the Chamers of commerce of all of the cities listed on the back of the coin and it was aceptable in all of those cities.) It is cataloged as Lamb 1.1 5c 1918 Zinc and round. It is a common piece probably worth about $5.

The only reference I ave seen on the French issues is A Catalogue of French Emergency Tokens of 1914 - 1922 by Robert A Lamb It covers municipal, rail and tramway, merchant associatons, cafe, and prisoner of war issues. Possibly some other issuers as well.