1863 Civil War Token - Uncut Partial Collar Strike!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share an amazing 1863 Civil War Token with you all! Now this isn't any ordinary CWT, as you see in the pictures, the collar is still attached to the coin! :bigeyes: But not only this, there also seems to be a cud in the last '3' digit You won't really find many coins like this, so it's a one of a kind!

Enjoy! :eat:

 

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thats very different and Cool.

 

My guess is the dies were worn out so to get the strike, they just struck it harder. The same thing holds true for cutting a tomato with an extremely dull knife, just push down harder, but then the tomato will look like your coin. :goofer:

Love it! :thumb:

Ribbit

 

I don't think I have ever seen a coin with such a big collar strike, so this is a nice one and the cud makes it better

But what's up with the week denticles? Just from wear I suppose? I'm mainly talking about from 2K to 7K on the OBV?

 

Just to be technical, it is a die break at the 3.

A cud, by definition, must involve the rim.

Still nice.

 

besides the technical talk, is that real? :bigeyes:
very cool

PD13

 

Frank beat me to this one. I agree 100% with Frank. Awesome token there. Very interesting the stage that the die must of been in at the point of this striking. Wonder if they had superglue back then. : )

 

Glaubrecht CWT 110/442a • R1

Hi, Ryan. Your photos are excellent. : )

Your Patriotic Civil War Token is Fuld 110/442a (R1).

These tokens, struck by George Glaubrecht of New York City may have been struck without a collar other than a thin retaining ring. Had there been a collar like those used to produce a reeded edge, it would have been struck by the hammer die and damaged during these strikes. No evidence of die-to-collar clashing is shown on any of these tokens that I have seen. Dentils and rims were engraved in the die with indexing machinery, and these dies were out of alignment during striking.

Had the dies been perfectly aligned, there would be no excess planchet material showing beyond the rims (see obverse examples). Sinking the dies to an optimum depth was the mark of an expert and would leave no excess flashing outside the rim. These tokens are evidence of mechanical error. Machining to remove such flashing would have removed part of the rim on the obverse. In addition, labor cost to remove any flashing would have been more expensive than the value of the tokens.

I suspect that the obverse was the stationary anvil die and was installed facing upward. The reverse, showing the 'flange,' was likely the upper die, facing downward and rammed against the planchet. Being the only moving die, it would be the die most likely to shift and cause the result you see at the edge of the token.

On this MS-64 RB example you can see the edge from a slighter degree of misalignment of the dies, yet very similar to yours. The level of the fields should be almost identical to the seeming 'excess' planchet material, since the flat portion outside the rim was formed by a flat portion of the die that extended beyond the rims. Where you see the flat portion beyond the rim, there was the other die pressing the planchet against a flat portion of the die on this side, outside the rim.



The scalloping you see at the edge of your example may be due to incidental abuse. Also, I suspect that a few folks have 'helped' by hammering a bit on its edge to attempt to bring it into a more conventional appearance. They covered up some history and defiled the natural condition of the token.

My example of exactly the same variety shows clearly the same die chip/crack that involved the '3' in the date on your example. To me it appears that the chip appeared when the date was repunched (also known as 'recutting') as part of reconditioning the die obverse die. But it may have developed later at the same fragile point at the edge of the punched '3,' due to an incident in the die sinker's shop or the striking area.

During the die reconditioning process, a few stars were repunched, if not all of them. See star number 4 at 9:30 and part of a star in the fields past the 12th star, at about 4:30. The flat surface of the fields were probably polished or ground smooth, easy to do since the fields were the easiest place to polish or mill, located on the end of the die. This token was probably punched using a steam-powered coin press similar to those used at the Scovill Manufacturing Company and the Waterbury Button Company, both in Waterbury CT.

Waterbury had large factories, but many die sinkers worked in store fronts in New York City. They generally had only one press and one steam-generating boiler. Backwoods die sinkers in smaller towns did employ more primitve striking equipment, some reverting to use of screw presses similar to those used in England prior to the advent of steam power.

Conder Tokens from the 1790's are proof of the use of steam power. Screw presses would have difficulty striking a large series of such large and heavy coins. Water or oil hydraulic presses of a kind were likely under development then and used in some die sinker's striking facilities.

Remember that Civil War Tokens circulated exactly like official coinage, were accepted at all banks and merchants. By the end of the war, the value of copper tokens would approach two cents. Their intrinsic value was generally the same as a one cent coin struck by the U.S. Mint.

 

Thank you so much for all this information And must I say that is a beautiful coin you have! I figured that the collar on my coin was rather "thin" which caused it to bend and crumple like that just from regular circulation, but your idea is much possible too

Also, thanks for the heads up on the stars being re-punched, I never had payed attention to that! Sweet!

Are all of the collars on these thin like my one? Your once looks really nice and perfect, so I was just wondering if some had thicker collars than others?

Thank you once again for educating me on the coin, it's nice to know how errors are created

 

I will 2nd that! :thumb:

It's always a good day when you learn something new! :hammer:

Ribbit

 

Thanks, folks.

Collars must have varied in thickness and served, usually, to merely hold the planchet in place until the hammer die descended. During actual compression, the planchet would not be going anywhere, except that like clay, as it is compressed between two dies, metal 'squooshes' out the sides if the strike is too deep. On perfect strikes, nothing would protrude much beyond the rims, if at all. Some tokens show a depressed ring around the edges, possibly caused by two different effects: 1) a thin collar could cause a depression where some hot metal had flowed beyond it, or 2) the metal expanded at the top and bottom, but less or none in the cooler center of the edge of the planchet.

Cuds are not collar defects generally, but defects at the rim of the die, remembering that these rims and dentils were cut into the die. So a cud is similar to a die chip or a die crack, reflecting a depression in the die, and creating a higher area on the token.

To some extent, a lot was happening at the surface of the planchet but little was happening to the center of the planchet. At the surface, heat, gases, and pressure caused flow lines to arise on the dies and they were stamped into the tokens. At the center the physical structure of the planchet remained intact. Only a planchet's outwardmost surfaces became molten and plastic.

 

COOL!!! I'm working on enough sets as it is...Don't get me started on tokens now! lol

 

Thanks! Sometimes I see some coins with a second rim (not a collar though), but that's just probably either from a vending machine, or the way the coin was pressed down. It's all very interesting on how these are made and created! But why didn't the mint stop the coins that had this collar attached to them, if they are that common?

 

Too late, I've already been mesmorized into collecting tokens. It started with some pictures on a thread. Larry...you're THE MAN!!!

 

DANGIT! Now I'm searching on ebay! lol

 

They were privately minted and each one was money to them, so they had to make money to make money.

Ribbit

 

I'd like to see an edge shot of that piece. That doesn't look like a partial collar, it looks more like a cast copy where the mold didn't come together well and the metal extruded out between them. The "flange" doesn't appear to be at either the top or bottom but somewhere around the middle of the edge.

 

That's one great thing about Civil War Tokens. For the most part they were free of counterfeits. Anybody could make a token and it wasn't illegal. Their tokens would be no more counterfeit than the originals and none were ever 'minted' by a government; CWT's were 'struck' by die sinkers.

All tokens were accepted because they had intrinsic value. Many die sinkers worked with screw presses, sometimes in barns in the countryside, and farmers or their children worked for the die sinkers, usually part-time.

Even the Chinese don't counterfeit Civil War Tokens, yet. LOL

Conder Tokens were different and many counterfeits existed, but they were often made of other metals or alloys. I'm sure you know that already, being a researcher. I believe many of the fake Conders were made in the early 19th Century.

I have now considered the possibility that the token is of an off-metal, perhaps alloyed with lead, tin, or zinc. But my hunch is that it's real, and made of copper. But I can't be sure at this point. Yes, the metallurgy is in doubt, imho.

BTW, tokens struck without collars would have excess flowing out between the two dies, in the center of the edge or thereabouts, without any method or need to restrain the flow. Perhaps it was an adjustment strike, still worth one cent. The 'flange' seems to be near the center of the edge, which would indicate lack of any retaining collar. Only the pressure and friction of the dies held the planchet in place.

Some of the research I've read has been wrong. For example, some sources say Conder tokens were struck with one piece collars which produced the edge lettering. This seems impossible with edges having raised letters and I doubt it could have been accomplished with tokens having incuse lettering or designs. How would a die sinker get a token to release from a one piece collar? It couldn't be done, I believe.

I have read that some coin presses used four-piece collars, which makes more sense to me, giving much easier release from the collar assembly. Most retaining collars were smooth and produced a plain edge. In those cases, a token could be pushed out of the collar, by press machinery.

 

Here's a partial collar strike in a seller's photos, not on ebay

Here's a partial collar strike in MS-63 BN condition. I'd imagine that the collar was broken. Whether only one token was struck like this, or if there was a sequence of them, I don't know. This one looks like it may have been struck using a two-piece collar and that half of it was missing. What do you think?

 

Nice one! :thumb: I don't really know much about these, but many of the peeps that have replied to this thread seem to know, so wait for one of them to pop in here and reply on your BEAUTIFUL coin!