Bought my first Civil War Token

blu62vette

Got this today because I really like the design. It is a F-233/312 a, US Capitol Building. Welcome your thoughts.

bolivarshagnasty

It's a beautiful piece Todd. Great pickup!! Shag

Justacommeman

Beautiful old timey look to it Todd. Love it! Nice strike..........I just posted my first CWT's earlier in the day so welcome to the club! Addictive I'm afraid....MJ

CaptainRon

I dig the concentric lines on the obverse, your photo shows them well.

Congrats

yellowkid

Nice piece Todd, but you're ventured onto the slippery slope.

STONE

Cool, I didn't know there was a CWT with the Capital building on it

blu62vette

<< <i>Nice piece Todd, but you're ventured onto the slippery slope. >>



you haven't been helping...

LotsoLuck

Thats a great looking CWT and superb photography. Its good to see some of you folks getting in to the "last frontier" of coin collecting

LotsoLuck

Happy belated.

tbarreca

<< <i>Thats a great looking CWT and superb photography. >>





Also great to meet you at the McIntosh Show in Sacto today! And please refresh my aging memory: Does Fuld give rarity estimates? If so, what's the estimate on that US Capitol token, please? Like Stone, I didn't know that there was a CWT with the Capitol on it.

MisterBungle

Interesting token, Todd.

Although dated 1863, the exterior of the Capitol
Dome was not completed until December of 1863,
when the last segment of the Statue Of Freedom
was put into place atop the dome.

I'm not sure when the scaffolding on the exterior
was removed, but there was still scaffolding on
the interior of the building until 1866.

This whole Capitol Dome rebuild was a pretty big
deal at the time which, I'm sure, played a part in
its inclusion on this token.

~

Gemini

Nice token Todd....you have made a capitol investment

BillJones

To continue the story of this token, there was man, named Henry Higgins, who lived in Mishawaka, Indiana, who made Civil War tokens that collectors now call the Indiana primitives.

Higgins produced his dies in two ways. He made some of his dies from scratch with letter punches and numerous horns, leaves and flourishes. The spacing of the lettering was crude, and the tokens have a homemade look that many collectors find irresistible.

Higgins’ second method was to make dies from existing tokens that he found attractive or interesting. As near as we can determine Higgins softened a steel rod and used an existing token to sink the design to create a die face. The resulting dies had the same design, but part of the detail was lost. Using this method Higgins created dies for a liberty head, the Monitor, an equestrian statue of George Washington and the U.S. capital. I suppose that Higgins was concerned that his Capital copy die did not produce an image that looked enough like the building to be recognizable. So he added the word “CAPITAL” below the image of the building. At any rate here is an example of Henry Higgins’ capital Civil War token.

ThePennyLady

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<< <i>Nice piece Todd, but you're ventured onto the slippery slope. >>



you haven't been helping... >>



Yeah, you don't need to get into copper, Todd, so why don't you just give this one to me. I'm sure I will appreciate it MUCH more than you......

blu62vette

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<< <i>

<< <i>Nice piece Todd, but you're ventured onto the slippery slope. >>



you haven't been helping... >>



Yeah, you don't need to get into copper, Todd, so why don't you just give this one to me. I'm sure I will appreciate it MUCH more than you...... >>



Only if you give me your silver, wait that doesn't work.

ThePennyLady

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<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Nice piece Todd, but you're ventured onto the slippery slope. >>



you haven't been helping... >>



Yeah, you don't need to get into copper, Todd, so why don't you just give this one to me. I'm sure I will appreciate it MUCH more than you...... >>



Only if you give me your silver, wait that doesn't work. >>



Suuuure, sounds fair to me! By the way, that really is a neat CWT - but I'm going to restrain myself and not get too awwwed by it because I have to FOCUS since I already just turned my attention to Conder tokens, so I can't afford to get distracted by other beautiful copper pieces!