I never knew about this and I'm a Canton, OH native, where McKinley lived much of his life and was buried there. Have any of you ever heard of this? https://southerncalls.com/article/f...hSdSu08Me6KZ3v6_DIxSApv68Ik0czR6FWhInlGSpyeZ4
Thanks for the link. I, too, have never heard of these but it does sound like something that would have been done a century ago - put a coin under the wheels of a funeral train and retrieve it as a souvenir. Of course, today these would appear to be nothing more than train-smashed coins. The example pictured has text stamped into the coin after the fact but most would not. I wonder what became of the clipped gold eagle mentioned in the article
I recall that they did this with Lincoln's train as well, but all I could quickly find was this. https://rememberinglincoln.fords.org/node/907. Seems a bit hard to prove but the site seems reputable.
I saw one or two online a few years ago, now that you mention it, but it's been a while. Such things kind of popped up on my radar occasionally, back when I was collecting love tokens and counterstamped coins and other "creatively damaged" pieces. That's a really neat item, and if I ever saw one that also had a hole in it, I'd buy it and hang it on my Holey Coin Hat.
In my younger says I searched along the route of Lincoln's funeral train in Illinois and found civil war era copper nickel indians that people had thrown at the train as it passed by smaller towns. Some were dinged from hitting the train and some were not.
I didn't try to prove anything. I just wanted access to "free" civil war era coins. I found other places to find change in quantity that I still tap. That train travelled along a published route from DC to Springfield Illinois. The same thing happened all over and many of those coins still lay along the right of way. Sharing that opportunity does not harm me because I will never search those areas.
@harley bissell - I was not referring to you, not sure why you had that impression. I was talking about the funeral train coins in general, which is what this thread is about.
Unless it was counterstamped like the one in the article I posted, I would agree. But a totally flattened coin of the era in question would at least be a clue.
The interesting part about that is that the $10 Indian was Teddy Roosevelt's (McKinley's successor) favorite coin (without the motto), but they didn't come along until 1907. McKinley memorabilia are very popular in my home town of Canton. I don't live there any more, I live about 30 miles away, but I still go there on occasion.
