"All Aboard the Ghost Train": pictorial love token on 1853 Seated Liberty quarter

"All Aboard the Ghost Train": pictorial love token on 1853 Seated Liberty quarter



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Host coin: 1853 USA Seated Liberty quarter.
Obverse: original Seated Liberty design, unaltered, with traces of old pinback mount; hole at 12:00 obverse.
Reverse: 19th century locomotive with "9" on cab, name (undecipherable) engraved below.

Ex- "freshpics4u", eBay, 09/26/2017.

Here's another neat transportation-related pictorial love token. This was likely a gift to an engineer or someone else who worked on the railroad. It appears to have originally had a pinback mount, but was later holed for use as a pendant; probably a watch fob. The way I like to imagine it, this engineer carried the coin for many years on his watch chain, long enough to wear away the engraved script which once showed his name. So he is now only a nameless ghost, and thus I couldn't resist calling this "Old Number 9" locomotive a "ghost train".

 

PS- If anybody knows anything about locomotives of this era and has something interesting to add, I'd love to hear it.

Here are two other pieces from my current "Creatively Damaged" collection (which will used to resurrect my trademark "Holey Coin Hat"). Both of these have pictures of 19th century wheeled vehicles. I think I have a theme starting, though I'm sure some ships and boats will come along eventually!

"Where's the Fire?" (1875 USA dime)
"Penny-farthing Pedal Pusher: (1876 USA dime)

This next one is also transportation-related, in a way (WW1 aviation), but alas, it doesn't show a picture of a WW1 airplane.

"The Sailmaker's Badge" (1916 British halfcrown)

PPS- paging @dwhiz, on the off chance you might like the coin above.

 

Tantalizing, isn't It? You can bet I'll be squinting at that through a loupe when it arrives.

 

@Paddy54 - It was I whom you notified about this piece, but "the train left the station" without me, so to speak, and I did not win it.

Then yesterday, lo and behold, there was a Second Chance Offer from eBay in my inbox! Though I had to dip into my credit card balance a tiny bit for part of the money, I did not want to let this one escape my grasp.

And in the end, I was quite happy with the price. This locomotive quarter cost me only about 2/3 what each of those two dimes (the one with the fire engine and the one with the bicycle) did.

Thanks!

 

Actually, looking back at my PMs, I see now that it was @TypeCoin971793 and not @Paddy54 who gave me the heads-up (though I had already seen it thanks to my eBay antennae).

So thanks are due there.

 

Me too.

Getting the Second Chance Offer on it was a pleasant surprise. What's that old saying about ducks and june bugs?

 

Yes, the nice pictorials seem to come out in batches, usually when I'm stinkin' broke, and then it's a desert for a while again.