This caught my eye at a local antique store in a display case. Never owned one of these, but I liked how this one looked. With help from Numista and the Great Collections auction archives I was able to identify it. Compared to the few VF, AU and even MS examples sold at GC, this one has a very nice reverse, especially the leaves and shield regions. The pedestal on the obverse also is much more well defined than most of those examples. Some of those at GC have obvious cleanings, excuse me, ‘conservations’, using verdi care or a similar methods and I don’t like how some of them look. So at this point I don’t plan on doing that to this coin since I don’t see any hidden corrosion. I’ll call it a nicely struck EF specimen based on the VF and AU examples at the GC archives.
Normally I'd say VF but these tokens sometimes lack detail even in higher grades. It very well could be ab XF. A great CWT no matter how it grades. Bruce
Thank you for your thoughts. Here is the VF example from the GC archives for easy reference and comparison:
Yes. I have no experience with these but felt that the “firm” $30 price was reasonable given its age, my assumption of rarity, and nice look of the piece.
Yes it definitely was. Sometimes antique dealers are under priced as they don’t have a clue. Others times, they know or are guessing and they are too high. I know as I’m an antique dealer. You did really good.
Agreed. You did good at $30. Looking at the slabbed token and yours I'd grade them both VF. Your reverse is slightly better but the obverses look to be about the same. The picture of the slabbed token is dark so it's a little hard to see some of the detail. Both nice though. Bruce
