"Follow The Leader" coin thread BY THEME (for ALL types of coins, tokens, and medals)

I think that's a halfpenny. The first copper pennies were those big honkin' 1797 Cartwheels like the one @PaddyB posted. That looks pretty nice, for a dug copper.

 

"Grand Pretensions": "W.H. Vanderbilt" carved on 1826 Capped Bust half dollar



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Host coin: 1826 USA Capped Bust half dollar.
Obverse: unaltered except for "W.H. Vanderbilt" graffito in left obverse field.
Reverse: original eagle design, unaltered.

Ex- "lbandrc" (eBay)

Is it really possible this coin once belonged to famous 19th century railroad tycoon William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885)?

Sure, it's possible.

Is it probable? Not very.

But even if the engraving is a fantasy, it could be an old fantasy, from his lifetime. He was very rich and famous, after all, so anyone with a bit of time on their hands could’ve carved his name into a coin and perhaps concocted some crazy story or scheme to go with it. Or I’ll admit it’s even possible that somebody in more recent times did the same thing. My personal suspicions are that the carving is old, but let’s just say I’m not convinced the coin had anything to do with W.H. Vanderbilt personally.

But considering I acquired this piece for about 1/3 less than the regular G4 price of an 1826 Bust half dollar, I saw no reason at all not to include it in my Oddball collection.

You must admit it's intriguing. Fantasy love token? I'm OK with that.

Real Vanderbilt relic from his early days? Wow, wouldn't that be neat!

Either way, I was happy with it, though this piece has since gone on to reside in a good friend's collection.

This was formerly part of my old Engraved/Counterstamped/Oddball Type Set.

 

I concur. The word "born" is not so certain - it's possible, but hard to say. I could imagine I see "July" there, instead, but again ... hard to say. Either way, I do think it's almost certainly a birth/christening token.

Those old 18th century love tokens are great.

Here is a true love token (it says as much: "Love Me True As I Do You" / 1780 ) on an 18th century copper, but since both sides were engraved, it's impossible to say for sure what the host coin was. As I recall, it was a bit smaller than halfpenny size, so maybe a farthing. I never weighed it. I like the surname "Lavender". Have known of only one living person with that last name.

I wonder if "T. Horton" (probably the man) married "A. Lavender" (probably the lady), and if their descendants walk the earth today. I'm imaging his name to have been Thomas Horton, and hers Anne Lavender, though that's obviously a just a wild guess.

Who knows, maybe T. Horton was actually named Tim, lived an unnaturally long time, emigrated to Canada, and founded a fast-food chain.

 

While we're on the topic of 18th century love tokens - and difficult 18th century scripts (and the "damaged or worn out" theme), here's another fun discovery I made:

"Pill-Poppin' Sam": 1773 love token on British King George III halfpenny






Host coin: British KM-601 halfpenny of George III (ca. 1770-1773).
Obverse: original design with bust of George III right, unaltered.
Reverse: hand-engraved inscription "Sam / Jessop / 1773" within wreath, with flourishes and ornamental border.

I've long liked these 18th century copper love tokens, but because I'm not alone in that regard, prices on them seem to have gotten a bit stiffer and have mostly risen into low 3-figure territory these days. I had this one in my eBay watch list for a good while, and when the seller reduced the price by about 40% (to just a hair over $50), I pounced.

I would have been happy with it at that price, but as has happened a few times before, when I got around to doing a little research, I found an interesting backstory to the coin which made it even more valuable to me.

The seller had transcribed the name on this piece as "Pam Jefson", which is an understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. It clearly says "Sam", and when one takes the old-style long S into account, it is plain that the name is "Sam Jessop".

And that is where the story gets intriguing, for there was a Samuel Jessop of Heckington, Lincolnshire, England (b. ca. 1753, d. 1817) who was the subject of several contemporary press reports. It seems he got himself into some legal trouble, as he was a hypochondriac and a drug addict with prodigious appetites, whose incredibly excessive pill-popping got him into serious money trouble. He ran up a bill of 787 pounds, 18 shillings, which was a truly staggering amount of money at the time- the equivalent of many tens of thousands of dollars today-all to feed his habit! So societal ills like "prescription drug abuse" are nothing new.



They were hard on debtors in those days, so perhaps Sam was lucky that his case was settled for 450 pounds, which was still a fortune. He died only two months after the verdict, in May 1817, aged 64 (or 65, by some sources). The case was widely reported in the press, and revisited many times in the 19th century and even as late as 1905, no doubt due to its sensational aspects. By the later accounts, his name had morphed into "Jessup", but contemporary accounts spell it "Jessop", just as it is on this coin.

Of course it's entirely possible that there was more than one "Sam Jessop" in England in the late 18th century, but given that the general time period, place, and name fit, I'd say there is a good chance this love token was once owned by the infamous pill popper in his younger, healthier days. Samuel Jessop would have been about twenty years old in 1773 when the engraving was done on the reverse of this coin.

Was it a gift from a sweetheart in his youth? If so, one wonders what happened, since he was described as a "bachelor of opulence" at the time of the trial in 1817. Did he never marry? Was he widowed? Who gave him the love token? Was it still in his possession as a keepsake as he neared his tragic, sordid end? We'll never know all these answers, but I think you'll agree with me that the backstory makes this love token all the more fascinating.

The New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 7, 1817 (source of quote in image above)
The Cabinet of Curiosities, 1824 (somewhat longer article)
"The Pill Devourer" (modern British Library "Untold Lives" blog entry)

This love token was once one of the finer pieces in my old Engraved/Counterstamped/Oddball Type Set. I have since sold it to a good friend who collects this sort of material, but hopefully he will hold on to it for a while so I can have future "visitation rights".

 

Thanks.

Speaking of putting faces to the onetime owners of these coins, a couple of times I've been able to do that literally.

"Bertha's Boy"

World War I love token on 1916 French franc, from a fallen Canadian soldier to his mother



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Host coin: 1916 French 1-franc piece, KM844.1, .835 silver/.1342 oz., 23 mm. Obverse: original French "Sower" design, unaltered. Reverse: "1 Franc" and olive branch planed off, date and legends intact, re-engraved "Bertha / V. Shaver / Montreal / Canada" in script. Ex-"pondcollections" (eBay), 2/9/2016.

World War I "trench art" pieces and love tokens are commonly found on the French 1- and 2-franc "Sower" coins of the period. This one is visually unremarkable, though the engraved script was well done. At first glance, it's not even as interesting as the "dog tag" or "ID badge" pieces that typically bear a soldier's name, service number, and/or unit.

However, I decided to research it because of the presence of a full name (first, last, and middle initial), to see if I could pin down more information about the onetime owner of this piece. It turned out I found very little about Bertha V. Shaver of Montreal, Canada, who was obviously the recipient of the love token, but through her name, I was able to determine with a reasonable amount of certainty that the engraving was commissioned by her son, Harold Clinton Shaver, who was serving with the Canadian Army Medical Service in France during the Great War.

Since the date was left intact on the host coin, we know it was engraved no earlier than 1916. Of course the war ended in November of 1918, but the life of Private Harold Shaver was tragically cut short before that, on May 20, 1918, from wounds suffered the day before in a German air raid on the hospital he was probably working in. Thus we can pretty definitively date the engraving on the coin to sometime between October of 1917, when Harold Shaver enlisted, and May 19, 1918, when he was mortally wounded.

As a further compelling detail to this poignant tale, I discovered a newspaper photograph of Harold Clinton Shaver on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial website. So this is now the second time I've been able to "put a face to the coin", and it was a young and handsome face at that.

May Harold and Bertha Shaver rest in peace, and I hope the joy of their eventual reunion in heaven eclipsed the suffering they experienced during their earthly existence.



Data source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial

(Note that there are some minor discrepancies in the sources. His death date was given as May 19th below, though that was the date of his wounding. He died on May 20th.)



Data source: Canadian Great War Project

 

"Relic of a Short Life": "JASPER DILDAY" love token on ca. 1867-1869 Shield nickel



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Host coin: ca. 1867-69 USA Shield nickel.
Obverse: "JASPER DILDAY" counterstamped with individual letter punches, within engraved border decorations.
Reverse: original Shield nickel design, unaltered except for possible traces of old mounting.

Ex- "acsb-rich", eBay, 11/13/2015.

Aside from Shield nickels being slightly less common host coins for love tokens, this piece is largely unexceptional, though the work on it was competent enough. I normally would not have considered it, because I prefer the host coin dates to be visible on my love tokens. However, when I noticed this piece featured both a first and last name, and a reasonably uncommon last name, I decided to try and see if I could find Jasper Dilday.

And I did!

Sources vary as to his birthyear, but he was reportedly born around 1855 and died in 1879. This is not only contemporaneous with our host coin, but also helps narrow the date of the engraving down between 1867 (since there are no rays on the reverse of the nickel) and 1879 (the year Jasper Dilday is said to have died). And though as of this writing I do not know the cause, he died young, as so many people did in the 19th century.

(Shield nickel specialist Howard, of www.shieldnickels.net, informs me that this host coin can be even more narrowly dated by the reverse hub alone. So the host coin would have been dated ca. 1867-1869 while the engraving would date ca. 1867-1879 as mentioned above, extrapolating from Jasper Dilday's death date. Thanks, Howard!)

Yes, it's possible that there was more than one Jasper Dilday, but this one seems to fit the period of this coin perfectly. I'll bet it's him.

The thing that excited me most about researching Jasper Dilday was that I found he had a memorial page on findagrave.com, and it featured his photograph!

That's when I knew I had to buy this piece!

Except for famous pedigrees, how often can we numismatists say exactly who owned a coin in our collection?

And how often does a photograph of that person survive, to let their face stare back at us from the past?

Here is Jasper Dilday himself, as a young man of around fifteen years old, circa 1870. He would have been only about 24 when he died.



Here is the information from his findagrave.com memorial page.

It seems he lived long enough to marry, but his wife Nancy also died young, only a year after he did. She would have been only 21. Perhaps it was she who gave him the coin above?

Though now sold, this was once part of my "Oddball Set" of exonumia.

 

Continue the "damaged or worn out" theme if you like, or switch to either gold in general, or Queen Victoria.