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coinsarefuncoinsarefun Posts: 21,663 ✭✭✭✭✭
I recently picked up 2 Samuel Tilden Political Tokens and would like to share it with you.




First One is Samuel J. Tilden: Very scarce variant in copper, SJT 1876-7 in DeWitt/Sullivan.










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Second One is Samuel J. Tilden: Rare satirical 1876 campaign token, SJT 1876-9 in DeWitt/Sullivan. Gold-plated brass










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Below is an article I found in the Online Numismatist......it mentions both tokens










By Fred L. Reed III




Spare Change column by Fred L. Reed III: Bitter message for candidate — Advertiser pans Democrat Tilden.




New York governor and Democratic reformer Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote for U.S. president in 1876, but fell one vote short of the 185 electoral votes necessary to seal the deal in the Electoral College. A 15-member Electoral Commission awarded the contested election to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.




Two years later the Republican-oriented New York Tribune published decoded secret “cipher telegrams” allegedly sent by Tilden’s agents during the 1876 election dispute. The publication claimed these decoded ciphers showed attempted bribes of vote counters in Florida, South Carolina and Oregon.




Although it was discovered that Tilden used similar ciphers in his business dealings, he denied the charges and was personally cleared of involvement. However, the “scandal” gave fodder to his political opponents, and ruined his chances for renomination during the next election cycle.




The store card shown was not circulated by Tilden’s partisans, but circa 1878 to 1880 by his opponents, likely anti-Tilden Brooklyn Argus editor Demas Barnes, who also had a half interest in Drake’s Plantation Bitters.




The Democrat Barnes foretold “Tilden’s ‘Convention’ Bitters,” arising from his scandal, would cause his exit from the party stage at the next national convention in 1880.




Marketers at the time, taking their cue from secret coded ciphers that aided the North in winning the Civil War, jumped on the messaging bandwagon. This was especially true of the omnipresent proprietary medicine vendors, who proliferated trade style ciphers to increase public awareness of their products through “word of mouth” speculation in the marketplace.




The most famous cipher of the period was created for Patrick H. Drake’s proprietary cordial, Drake’s Plantation Bitters, advertised on the reverse of the illustrated store card. Drake’s enigmatic cipher “S. T. — 1860. — X.” was plastered worldwide. It was so omnipresent that it even invaded Mark Twain’s novel The Innocents Abroad and William Dean Howell’s novel The Rise of Silas Lapham.




Drake’s cabalistic slogan meant absolutely nothing, according to his ad agent George P. Rowell, and was only a gimmick to capture public attention.




The portent of Barnes’ anti-Tilden message is much less obscure: “Samuel J. Tilden 1880 exit.”




That 1880 convention was indeed politician Tilden’s last hurrah on the public stage, as Drake’s business partner Barnes had predicted.




Fred L. Reed iii has been a collector and writer for many years. Reach him at www.fredwritesright.com.









This is a grouping belonging to the Cornell University that shows some of the Tilden Tokens....I thought it was put together very nicely.
















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I also found online some great Political campaign posters












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Here is the reference to the Drakes Plantation Bitters......they actual put out the gold guilt token. And Tilden's Convention Bitters refers to the bitterness of his campaign












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Below are some of Drake's bottle designs which were very popular and still collectable today.












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Drakes Bitters Encased Postage are also very well known and collected












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Well........I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did collecting the tokens.
I also hope that the formatting comes out on this thread as we no longer have a preview.
And I had to insert breaks to separate the paragraphs














Comments

  • BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
    ShamWow... Great Shammy the Shameless post! imageimage
    To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
  • DUIGUYDUIGUY Posts: 7,252 ✭✭✭
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    “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly."



    - Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC
  • When Hillary gets elected. It will start with... Enough drama
  • ZoinsZoins Posts: 33,811 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: FullCameo
    When Hillary gets elected. It will start with... Enough drama


    Apparently there's a US $1 coin with Hillary Clinton on it, issued by the US CNMI territory.
  • Originally posted by: Zoins
    Originally posted by: FullCameo
    When Hillary gets elected. It will start with... Enough drama


    Apparently there's a US $1 coin with Hillary Clinton on it, issued from CNMI.



    I think you are wrong. Again.
  • TwoSides2aCoinTwoSides2aCoin Posts: 43,794 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Got some HalloWeenie Coins in a Capital holder.

    They're Lincoln Memorial Cents and the change caused political backlash among restless collectors everywhere.
  • kazkaz Posts: 9,052 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Great thread!
  • keyman64keyman64 Posts: 15,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
    When were political tokens last "used/made" by presidential candidates?
    "If it's not fun, it's not worth it." - KeyMan64
    Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners. :smile:
  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,427 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: keyman64
    When were political tokens last "used/made" by presidential candidates?


    I have some pieces that were issued in 1960s. George Wallace even issue some that were made of plastic! They look like cheep pot metal, but they were made of something even tackier than that.




    The artwork on the most modern pieces is almost always very poor. The last really nice tokens were issued in the 1930s for Franklin Roosevelt. Here is one of them. This piece was probably not made to elect FDR, but to push the New Deal after he was in office.

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    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • WillieBoyd2WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,034 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    "My fellow Americans ... Orson Welles was right!"



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    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television

  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,427 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The first piece that "Coinsarefun" showed in this piece is actually one of a set of three tokens. These pieces were issued after Tilden had been railroaded out of the 1876 presidential election. They were issued by angry Democrats who felt that Tilden had been too laid back during the shenanigans that had cost him the election. They were looking forward to the patronage that came in the 19th century after a change of party in the White House. Here are the other two tokens in the three piece set:




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    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Great thread.... thanks Stef and BillJones... Cheers, RickO
  • SeattleSlammerSeattleSlammer Posts: 9,953 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Cool stuff!

    Do these count?....not counting Uncle Jerry of course. The Stand Pat pinback is in demand. image

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  • coinsarefuncoinsarefun Posts: 21,663 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Picked up 3 more Anti Tilden tokens. All prooflike.








    Three Anti Tilden Campaign Medals. Sullivan-DeWitt SJT 1876-5 -6 - 7 all in white metal and 28 mm, produced by George H. Lovett for Isaac F. Wood of New York








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  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,427 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Here is an 1856 medalet for James Buchanan. It says that "The crisis demands his election," but many historians view him as the worst president in history. Among other things he sat by and watched the union fall apart. He said that it was illegal for states to secede from the Union, but he didn't think he had any legal authority to stop it. In the mean time his secretary of war, who would become a Confederate general, was filtering military supplies to the South.


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    And why was Buchanan so qualified to be president? Check out his resume on this piece. No presidential candidate had so much experience in so many high offices.


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    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • You can see some good images of the Tilden pieces at http://www.lovetttokensmedals.com/GeorgeH/1876camp.html
  • TopographicOceansTopographicOceans Posts: 6,535 ✭✭✭✭
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  • ldhairldhair Posts: 7,111 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I found this a while back. Thought it was a bit cool. Made me think of BillJones.

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    Larry

  • SkyManSkyMan Posts: 9,493 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Politics of a sort...







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