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Coin? Token? Garbage?
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10 posts in this topic

It's not a business strike US coin. My bet is that it's a Civil War era token, of which there are quite a few varieties, so I would go looking for it in a reference of that nature. Finding it might be easier if it were possible to remove it from the bail, though I can see why one might hesitate to do so.

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The back can't be seen because of the necklace. I have seen similar searching online but nothing identical. I'll post another picture but only the front. The front has a deep scratch, I'm assuming someone tried removing it before.

IMG_20200919_112836.jpg

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The coin or token I'm guessing is either nickel or lead. I cleaned it off and that's why I'm leaning to lead which is soft and scares me even more to try and remove it out of the necklace.

IMG_20200921_120526.jpg

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A token minted in 1859 would have been during the time of the U.S. Merchant tokens - (1845-1860) - after Hard Times and pre- Civil War. There is nothing listed in Rulau that matches yours. In fact I could only find one Indian Head token for the whole period, issued by a company in New York, and it is not a match.

It also does not match any Civil War tokens that I could find, although the illustrations in Rulau are fuzzy for some of the examples. I can't imagine why a Civil War token would have a date of 1859, though. Without seeing the reverse, it will be impossible to say for sure, but my opinion is that it is neither a coin nor a token, but a "replica" piece made for the purpose of mounting in jewelry.

Oddly, there was one like it on Ebay over the weekend, but it is gone now. It was listed for $100, but I can assure you that this is a very "optimistic" price. I doubt it is worth more than $15 - $20 at most.

Edited by Just Bob
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The joker in the deck, of course, is that we can't be certain the date represents the actual date of mintage. But I agree that it doesn't look like penny material from the era. A jewelry replica sounds quite probable.

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