Do American political tokens count as exonumia for purposes of this thread? Here's a 32 mm. brass token issued in 1932 for FDR's first election campaign. It's not in great condition, but that's irrelevant to me, because it belonged to my father, who was 12 years old in 1932. (I also have his Al Smith pinback button from 1928.) Does anyone know if there's a safe way to clean it up a bit?
I have a similar Roosevelt token but it has a dirigible on the reverse also. Franklin D. Roosevelt "Lucky Tillicum" Coin - US Capitol and Dirigible Brass, 32 mm, 12.86 gm Obverse: Franklin D. Roosevelt facing left. LUCKY TILLICUM / REBUILD WITH ROOSEVELT Reverse: United States Capitol building and Dirigible flying UNITED STATES CAPITOL The dirigible is probably the US Navy rigid airship USS Akron which was built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin company and launched in 1931.
The two Roosevelt-Capitol tokens are different in other ways. Mine has a horizontal line under the capitol building and a different font for "UNITED STATES CAPITOL".
Here's a case holding a lot of my political exonumia. The top couple of rows consist mostly of 19th century presidential campaign tokens. You can't really see what they are in this photo, so I will try sometime to take closeup photos of both sides of them. The first Al Smith button with his photo on it, most of the FDR material, and the Truman, Stevenson, Kennedy, and LBJ buttons were my father's.
@Circus You tell me....are all of these trade tokens being sold by the score made of aluminum authentic? Many sellers tout dates from the late 1800's and beyond. Aluminum didn't really become a material for utilitarian objects until really the 40's. The Aluminum Association wasn't founded until 1935. How did all of these alum. tokens allegedly 110 years old hold up like practically new considering the environmental elements they must have been around? Here's 2 from my latest acquisition, one alum. the other copper. Are we being duped with Chinese made aluminum bu****t? https://www.aluminum.org/aluminum-advantage/history-aluminum
First thing is sellers of the flea-bay and other site may know nothing about the age of the token. I would have to say that any or most aluminum tokens date from the early 1900/190* when it came down in price to produce. It became a favorite of the do die work due to it had cheaper production costs, dies lasted longer, you didn't need to have harder face dies, no annealing of the blanks, and higher speeds of stamping. There are few high dollar tokens made from aluminum. also look at the CW's and HT's tokens I know little about either but I haven't seen many/any of either, out of aluminum. Counterfeiting is generally low investment high dollar return The good for and other tokens from that time period, aren't High dollar or high sellers. As the collecxtors for them are thinning out at a rapid rate. Most younger people could care less, If they have an interest all they do is google images and they will get all they want for free. As with most collectibles the numbers of collectors is down and prices depressed. case in point my father collected placte bocks and full sheets of stamps. Had $1,000 up of them prices are down anybody still buying with the large stamp house and their 1,000's of sheets. 25% of face value is the lowest and 30% the highest I have found. The is a ready market for stamp on flea-bay for those prices for postage. Which I am currently using them for The owner of this site also has a stamp forum which I'm a member which I posted some interesting items. I haven't started selling them yet. The other reason for aluminum was a lot of the billiard table makers payed for the tokens of the saloons and parlors. maybe Harley and others came chime in on the subject, along with a mod splitting this off into it's own thread.
J.A Coleman Jr. Good for 25c Hardeeville S.C aluminum, thin planchet, 2.0 grams, 28.5mm, rotated 90 degrees, Chibbaro Hard-3 Hardeeville today is small town near Hilton head and the S.C and Ga. border. J.A (James Amascus) Coleman Jr. operated a Naval Stores business from the late 1910's until the late 1920's. He also owned a general store where his Naval Stores employees used the tokens. Ref: Tony Chibbaro--Numismatics of South Carolina Merchant Trade Tokens For those unfamiliar with the term Naval Stores, they were materials derived from pine trees and used on wooden ships. For example tar, derived by intense heat to pine logs was used to waterproof ships ropes. Pitch derived from cooking off the water in tar was used to fill the gaps in ships planks. Tar and pitch production in North Carolina is how the name Tar heels came about. Turpentine was distilled from pine resin also called gum and was used in paints and varnishes. A by product of turpentine distillation, besides camp explosions and fires, was rosin. Rosin has strong gripping properties. Baseball players use it and fiddle players "rosin up the bow." Naval Stores was a huge business in the 1800's into the early 1900's. Some people in the Southeast spent their entire lives, from child to elder, "gathering gum" from pine trees.
Some more political exonumia. A silk campaign ribbon for Grover Cleveland, precise year unknown: An official Harry S. Truman Inaugural Medal, 1949: An official John F. Kennedy Inaugural Medal, 1961:
@Jwt708 I do too but as a re-seller it makes my job that much more difficult when the consinces amoung buyers is that everything they buy from that category is 100% real and then up comes a toke like the Hardeeville above with a nicely appropriate amount of wear IMO, then I have to generally go on the defensive about some I sell that look BU. The learning curve for customers is going to happen SO fast(glue-tube) that as a responsible seller I feel it necessary to give some education out myself which in my game time is money and defending takes time. Here's some exo I always love finding and one that, well I guess COULD be exo depending on how the graded coin fiasco treated ya last year....
And here are closer-up photos of the obverses and reverses of the old political tokens that I keep in the display case I posted yesterday: First row, left to right: 1. Undated, Obv. Bust of Andrew Jackson, three-quarters right, "Genl. Andrew Jackson"/ Rev. "Hero of New Orleans," 2. 1840, Obv. Bust of William Henry Harrison, left, "Maj. Gen. W.H. Harrison - 1841[sic]"/Rev. Eagle, "Go It Tip - Come It Tyler" 3. 1840, Obv. Bust of William Henry Harrison, left, "Maj. Gen. W.H. Harrison - Born Feb. 9, 1773"/ Image of Log Cabin, "The People's Choice - The Hero of Tippecanoe" 4. 1864? Obv. Bust of Lincoln, right /Rev. Bust of ?, right 5. 1864, Obv. Bust of Lincoln, right "1864"/ Rev. Eagle, "Lincoln and Union" 6. 1864, Obv. Bust of Lincoln, left, "1864"/ Rev. "O.K." Second Row, left to right: 7. 1864, Obv. Bust of McClellan, three-quarters right, "Maj. Gen. McClellan"/ Rev. Eagle, "One Flag and One Union, Now and Forever" 8. 1868, Obv. Bust of Grant, three-quarters right, "General U.S. Grant - 1868"/ Rev. "I Propose To Fight It Out In This Line If It Takes All Summer" 9. 1872, Obv. Bust of Greeley, right, "The Sage of Chappaqua - H.G. Greeley"/ Rev. Eagle, "Greeley Brown & Amnesty - 1872" 10. 1880, Obv. Jugate Busts of Garfield & Arthur, left/ Rev. Shield in center w/bar across saying "Union"; "J.A. Garfield - C.A. Arthur" 11. 1884, Obv. Jugate Busts of Cleveland & Hendricks, right/ Rev. Fasces with Ax in center, "Cleveland & Hendricks on a Broad Platform - Good Planks Will Lead All to Victory - 1884" Third Row, Left to Right 12. 1884, Obv. Jugate Busts of Blaine & Logan, left/ Rev. Shield in center w/bar across saying "Union"; "The Republicans Have Ruled Since 1860 And With Blaine & Logan Are Good For Another Term" 13. 1888, Obv. Bust of Benj. Harrison, three-quarters left, "Gen. Benjamin Harrison - 1888" / Rev. "Republican Candidate For President" 14. 1888? Pinback Button with photo of Grover Cleveland 15. Undated, Obv. Bust of Bryan, left, "Wm. J. Bryan"/ Rev. Blank with Wreath 16. 1904, Obv. Bust of Alton B. Parker, three-quarters left, "For President Alton B. Parker - 1904"/Rev. Bust of Theodore Roosevelt, three-quarters left, "For President Theodore Roosevelt - 1904"
Thanks. Political exonumia and other memorabilia probably constitute my fourth-level collection behind antiquities, ancient coins, and historical/commemorative/art medals, but I'm still very fond of it, because the core of it consists of materials that belonged to my father. By the way, I like your avatar -- I have an example of that M. Sergius Silus denarius, and it's one of my favorite Republican coins.
Thanks, here's my ancient Rambo in all it's glory (if you haven't seen it already): And to keep things legitimate... Here are tokens from bases in France:
Great write up, longnine. Always nice to know the history behind a token in your collection. I never knew what Naval Stores were but now I do. Thanks Bruce