Rulau 962/962A? - 1829 C. Wolfe Spies & Clark Token
StrikeOutXXX
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Bought a double row token box at coin club from someone who bought out a retired dealer's inventory about 20 years ago. He doesn't deal with tokens at all, so it had sat for many years untouched. He brought it to coin club just to get rid of. Unfortunately, I was 2nd to get to look at the box (1st guy picked several thousand dollars out of the box - about 1/4 of it). Guy was so happy with what the 1st guy paid him, when he handed it to me, said $X and you can have what's left. I couldn't resist.
There is a lot of cheap transportation and silly modern president tokens. After 2 quick sorts, I think there will end up being about 100 other tokens go in that $3-10 price range, nothing to write home about. I think I'm down to a couple dozen that I think are better tokens that I still need to research, but picked what I think will be the best of the bunch to start with.
So... the 2x2 just had Page 44 - 962? 1829 C. Wolfe on it.
It has a reeded edge, but has some damage to it
My Rulau books are buried at the moment, so just did googling.
There is a silver plated brass one on eBay called Rulau 962fpb, found only a couple in past other online auctions, mostly holed, lower graded ones. Does anybody know the difference with 962 and 962A (or an fpb)?
Stacks has an older auction that is somewhat similar - same exact marks on the Jackson side and scratch on Washington side (thoughts on that later).
https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-KF8QP/circa-1830-c-wolfe-spies-clark-token-musante-gw-120-baker-589-rulau-e-ny-962a-brass-reeded-edge-vf-detailsscratched-pcgs
Anyone care to venture a grading guess?
The pops are pretty low here and ATS from what I can find, I'm guessing it would have been a winner without the reeding issues, but thought it was neat enough to share.
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
Comments
I can't help with the variety attribution as I have my library boxed up to replace the windows once the weather breaks. I believe Fauver also covers these to some extent in his book on Kettle tokens. These and many other circa 1829-30's early US merchant token issued in brass were struck in England. This is a heck of a buy at $3-10 on average as even with a hole it would be worth $100-200 to a collector of such.
I suspect you already know what the similarity of the marks between these two specimens mean.
Ed. S.
(EJS)
@Broadstruck yea, I think the guy got multiples of his purchase price from the 1st guy, figuring there was nothing decent left, threw me an insanely low number I couldn't refuse. I'm not even in them at $1 each even after factoring in the stuff that will just go in the 5/$1 bin. There were decent tokens that sell, albeit fairly inexpensive - Kendall Oil, several good for trade tokens, some of the lesser value SCDs, exposition tokens, one of those teapot encased expo indian head cents, etc. The few dozen I think are decent are older tokens, but low condition, so $200 tokens in a $20 condition type of thing, but still a lot of digging and research. I love lots like this - gets me through the snowy winters here.
@Aegis3 Yes. I don't know much about these tokens, but the Stacks example in the link is almost an exact match (Mine doesn't have the vertical scratch on the Washington side). I think that's the scratch NGC detailed the coin for. The horizontal gouge above the head, and the vertical lines to the left and right of the Jefferson side as well as some of the dings on the coin match exactly. The problem is I can only find 3 other pictures of this token, and they are lesser grades, and almost look copper vs bronze (plus the silver plated one) - so I don't have a big reference library to compare what they should look like. Tack on Stack's text in their auction below had me wondering if it's just a die characteristic.
"Some old scratches are seen around the portraits on both sides, which is curiously an often seen treatment on these rare tokens."
I was hoping some of the token experts would chime in on this as my limited initial research has me scratching my head. There is a chance @burfle23 could be writing his next article showing the source coin (Stacks) and this one as a copy too so who knows.
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
Always up for another research project...
Starting with Stack's as you referenced: https://archive.stacksbowers.com/?q=2bd1d39e-787c-4ff1-8bb5-67100f960e8c
Heritages: https://coins.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=51+790+231&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=C.+Wolfe,+Spies+&+Clark&limitTo=all
Might be a few common marks on the Jackson side
...
From your images and the edge this appears to be a well made electrotype. A friend stated he has handled several in the past and they are very good. The certified example is the probable source example for these. Cool post!
I will try to take better images of this tonight at home, but I was leaning this way initially. The only thing that stopped me from titling this post - check out this pretty good counterfeit token was I really didn't have good reference images to do a good comparison, it is a fairly old token which may have had substandard dies to put those matching marks on some, and Stack's comment in its auction of:
"Some old scratches are seen around the portraits on both sides, which is curiously an often seen treatment on these rare tokens."
If they are referring to the obvious marks that match on these 2 examples, if they consider those as "Often seen treatment" - and your buddy is confirming this as an electrotype - then there are probably more out there. There just aren't many certified ones or pictures out there, plus there are a few different 962 varieties/compositions. Maybe some other token collectors have an example they can post pictures of.
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
The first things to check on any Wolf Spies & Clark token are the edge and the ring. There are quite a few good electros that show up fairly frequently. Even the reeded edge is somewhat well done -- I'll try to find one around here to image.
I found two electros of the Wolfe Spies, & Clark tokens, one of each of Rulau E-NY-960 and E-NY-962* (copper, not brass). As Rulau notes, all copper examples of NY-959 seen are electros (given catalog # NY-960 ). The same can be said of NY-962 (full portrait of Jackson variety) as originals were struck in brass only. One of these shows a partial crude reeded edge -- somewhere I have a couple more electros of these, one with a more fully reeded edge which I will try to find.
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Thanks @tokenpro finally got to my Token catalogs and can see what you mean with the annotation on the 960 saying all copper pieces examined have been electrotype copies.
The 962 (Brass) and 962A (Sil Br) doesn't have an annotation about electrotypes, but my catalog is the 1999 3rd edition, maybe it's in a newer version.
Mine I posted matches your electrotype as well. I guess all my questions have been answered. About the only mystery solved is we know what the source coin was for them. It's interesting the PCGS Slab has the pedigree as "Historical Society of PA" Wonder if they made the transfer before it was donated to them, or someone with access to it at the Society in the past pulled it off.
Was a fun adventure to add to the mental numismatic Rolodex - still have plenty more in the box to look up and learn from.
Plus - by moving the mountain of crap in front of my library cabinet, I rediscovered some books I still haven't read! Bonus.
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101