New interest in Token, hard times, and old store credit coins from US
Aspie_Rocco
Posts: 3,746 ✭✭✭✭✭
I made an impulse purchase this week and found an interesting new area of coinage. I acquired an 1837 Jackass and Tortoise token, for what felt like a reasonable price.
I was excited about the presentation in an old flip case with type writer info.
I am curious to hear about and see other tokens and unique Coinage of the past.
I would enjoy seeing pics and getting info from other collectors, as I might test the waters in exonumia (edited lol)
Best wishes,
Rocco
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I have one of those and some others. Great historical numismatic material, like Civil War tokens.
I had exonumonia once. It was not good. But I'm better now
Seriously... welcome to the hobby of exonumia and welcome back to the forum!!
I like it and yours appears to have a real clip too. Not super rare but still very cool.
It’s nice to see more and more people interested in tokens. I simply love them. You can’t beat the designs, history and rarities. Sometimes better than most us coinage. There are quite a few of us here and I’m surprised this thread has not been flooded with reply’s.
I started collecting Morgan’s, then went to moderns then as years past and I started to get bored as I am not a
year, date and mint mark collector. I like all different designs. I also like copper and silver, even gold.
It took many years for me to figure out what I wanted to collect, finally I decided to do a toned type set, which I’m still working on and it’s in my signature line below. Matter of fact all my other tokens and coins are in my wig line.
I also decided to put together a small representative of Russian and hungarian coins since that’s what my heritage is..
When I got into tokens I found there are soooo many different ones to collect. Civil war, Merchant, political and hard times tokens. I think my favorite has been narrowed down to Merchant tokens, hard times tokens and the British equal to hard times tokens is Conder tokens. I don’t collect all of them to make sets I collect what I like.
Over the years I have created several collages of what I collected and have posted them below.
I hope you enjoy them and continue to look into this great corner of the collecting.
My toned type set. An ongoing collection
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Thieve 2 were made when I was into civil war tokens
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Here is my current interests, British Conder tokens, US Merchant and pictorials.
None of these are up to date, I need to work on that but all of them are in my signature links.
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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
That is some awesome collections you have there. Very interesting and diverse. Excellent toning as well.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
Here is a little history for your token ...
The phrase “I following in the illustrious steps of my predecessor” was lifted from Martin Van Buren’s inauguration address. Van Buren was the protege of the Jackson, and since Jackson had been depicted as a jack ass on a few tokens that were issued during his presidency, Van Buren got the same treatment.
The turtle with the safe on its back is a satire on the Sub Treasury system as “slow pay.” At the beginning of Jackson’s administration, the Bank of the United States was the government’s banker. Jackson during his “bank war”, withdrew the government’s funds and placed them in private banks, which Jackson’s critics called “pet banks.”
The “pet banks” proved to be poor stewards of the government’s money. Some of them lost it, and some of those banks used it fund risky loans that encouraged a speculation bubble in western lands. The Democrat’s solution was to establish the sub treasury system which was the government’s “fiscal agent.” The Sub Treasury system was temporarily shut down when the Whigs took the Whitehouse in 1841, but it was revived during James Polk’s presidency (1845 to 1849). It would continue until 1913 when the Federal Reserve took its place.
Good token with a great reminder of the past. I really enjoy the history around these.
At the end of the day, Jackson's hard money policies failed and we've moved 100% away from hard money.
Billjones and Zoins, thank you for the great information and historic perspective. I appreciate the input. The history is what is most appealing to me concerning coins.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
Yes, but it took more than a century to move away from hard money officially. The official beginning got started with FDR'S Gold Surrender Order in 1933, and the coup de gras came in the 1970s.
Jackson does deserve credit for getting gold back into use in the U.S. with the Coinage Act of 1834. The physical result of that was the Classic Head gold coinage.
Here is one of the Hard Times tokens, with Jackson shown as a jack ass, that inspired the "follow in the footsteps" slogan on your piece.
The "LL.D" on the jack ass' belly refers to an honorary Doctor of Law degree that Harvard awarded to Jackson. John Quincy Adams, who was a Harvard alumnus, took exception to that. How could his distinguished alma mater award to degree to a man who was so ignorant that “he could barely spell his name?”
This token is quite common. In fact it is one of the more varieties in the series.
Good to see you back @Aspie_Rocco !
I do find these interesting as well. I only have one in my collection that I purchased through auction earlier this year. Hope to pick up more down the road too. Interesting facet of our monetary history.
Here is a "Mint Drop."
It is the name Jackson's detractors gave to his "metallic currency." Collectors now call it the Classic Head gold coinage.
Here are two recent additions to the collection
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
Those tokens certainly have been through some "hard times"! Thanks for sharing!
I love threads like this. I recently started a thread asking people what new areas they would like to get into. And the reason I asked is because I genuinely am interested and enjoy learning as others learn.
@Aspie_Rocco thank you for sharing your new interest. And thank you to all who contributed some history and other relevant information.
@coinsarefun
I discovered Great Britain Provincial/Conder tokens this week and have been reading up on them. I found your Box of 20 that was wonderful to look at!
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
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Thanks, I really do like them. Conder tokens were basically created for the same reason our hard times tokens were.
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Here is my latest pickup, on its way to me.
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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
wow that's cool!
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
They are fun to collect, I have a few inexpensive ones and love em
Steve
Consider joining the CIvil War Token Society. I was a member for a bunch of years when I was actively working on my NY CW Store card selection. It's still only $18/year, and you make that up almost immediately if you buy any of their reference books or participate in their monthly auctions. It was always fun to get their monthly newsletter and take my collection list out to decide what to bid on. If you buy and read the Journal reprints, you will know more than most of the dealers. And there are some neat rarities out there!
I've got about 60 HTT's, thinking of selling. Here are a few:
Tokens - be they store, hard times, condors or others, are very interesting and certainly express many historical messages...This is a great segment of our hobby and many collectors here have great examples (@coinsarefun, @Broadstruck etc.) Cheers, RickO
very
tokens and interesting pieces of history
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BxkY3fNtFUVZnSTR9
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https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNCqYiMqf5WV3upssjrtWbcDONsjsmMb6PmYmR0nz1-kfh_yoic_regKXzYvAGmxQ?key=al9GRnJJVzFlMlU2M2tSRmxoWDlVOEN5ZU5hMEl3
Those are all neat. Thanks for the post Aspie. Wish I had more money to get into new areas.
I notice the plastic holder your hard times token came in had a foam insert. That type of foam insert was commonly used in the 1960s. Unfortunately, it apparently contained a lot of PVC which will affect coins. Be wary about buying that type of item since any coin that has rested on that type of foam rubber for a long period may have PVC contamination.
Supporters of Whig Party, which opposed the monetary policies of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, issued this token which shows a dramatic contrast between two “ships of state.” Both parties had a reasonable point to make.
Andrew Jackson was a hard money man who believed strongly and silver and gold. He was a foe of paper money. In his younger days he had accepted some promissory notes which he used to finance a store that he opened. When the notes proved to be worthless, it almost bankrupted him.
Jackson believed that he could bring economic stability and prosperity to the working classes if could get large numbers of gold and silver coins into circulation. At the time the gold coins the Federal Government was issued contained too much gold. Almost entire mintages were exported and melted which explains why early gold coins from the ‘teens, ‘twenties and early 1830s are so rare.
Jackson got the Coinage Act of 1835 passed, which authorized the Classic Head Coinage, and he also got regulations into place that forbid the banks from issuing small denomination notes, like $1, $2 and $5 pieces. He wanted most transactions to be made in gold and silver. The prohibition against low denominations of paper money lowered the money supply which a very constrictive monetary policy. That resulted in a credit crunch which is mentioned on the ship wreck side of this token, “Metallic Currency.”
The obverse of the token shows a sailing ship in tranquil waters with “credit currency.” “Webster” referred to Massachusetts senator, Daniel Webster, who was presidential aspirant.
Jackson had a point when he called for controls on paper money. The banks of the period were largely unregulated and were able to issue as much paper money as they could. Many banks were run responsibly, but others were not. When a bank went bust, its paper was worthless. Some banks issued paper money but never opened. They were out to defraud the public. Modern Americans don’t realize how good they have it when it comes the current monetary system, even with all of its flaws.
Awesome tokens.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Thank you for the heads up! Yes, when Tortoise arrived it had a little pvc damage from the foam pad. I have since thrown the pad away and put the token in a flip.
@BillJones thank you for the informative historical write up, I love that stuff!
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
If you can get your hands on a copy of the catalog for STack's sale of the Dice-HIcks collection, you should grab it. Great photos and a ton of information, both historical and numismatic, about HTT's, Feuchtwanger's and others. "Hard Times Tokens" by Rulau is easier to find and useful. Collecting these is a lot of fun because of the interesting designs, symbolism and history. Forum member Broadstruck knows a lot about these and helped me locate most of the nicer examples in my small collection.
Ricko,
I also have around 90 high end Conders to go with my 60 HTT's. Here are a few high end stunners from both, likely Condition Census if not near finest extant.
Best, SH
@spacehayduke....Those are beautiful specimens.... Thanks for showing us. Cheers, RickO