James H. Hirsch & Co. Chicago, a nice older bronze token advertising their uniform clothing business. Address is on the coin. The reverse is unique in the sense this token is older than it looks. Yes, that is a swastika but it’s pointing left, not to the right as in WWII. This was a GOOD LUCK piece so inside the open areas of the swastika are a Clover, a Horseshoe, a Wish Bone and Runes. You may want to look them up. This is a membership coin of the don’t worry club. (Says so around the swastika) and it was minted by the Meyer & Wenthe manufacturer’s of Chicago. It was made in 1910 and has a Numista rarity index rating of 97. This index is based on 0 to 100, with zero being common and the higher the number the more rate it is. So a 97 is very rare. It’s in great shape for a token that’s 111 years old.
Very impressive and holds a shocking and historical truth - words, symbols, and actions can be perceived very differently even after just a short period of time. I wonder if the artist watched the public perception of the symbol change, or if he died before then.
It's not a swastika, in my opinion. It is a very old symbol used by native American's (and others) to signify good luck. Often called "whirling Logs," the design has been around for hundreds of years and only by bad fortune has it become associated with bad things and Nazis in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
The left facing symbol such as in your token is called a sauwastika and both have origins in Hinduism. The right facing symbol is for good luck and also called swastika and is the symbol the Nazis co-opted.
The James Hirsch token is interesting. There are supposedly over 1600 different types of "Don't Worry Club" tokens. Here's another men's clothing store token: Berkeley California Herbert Jones Men's Furnishings Token Brass, 31 mm, 9.19 gm Obverse: GOOD FOR 5 CENTS ON EVERY DOLLAR OF HATS, SHIRTS AND MEN'S FURNISHINGS BOUGHT OF HERBERT JONES 2308 TELEGRAPH OR 2114 CENTER BERKELEY, CAL. WHEN PRESENTED SINGLY Reverse: In the center a left facing large swastika, in the arms of the swastika a four-leaf clover, wishbone, horseshoe, and runes. MEMBERSHIP EMBLEM OF THE DONT WORRY CLUB GOOD LUCK Herbert Jones Men's Furnishings were Berkeley men's clothing stores located in Berkeley near the University of California. The stores were in business from around 1909 into the 1930's. Gary Patterson (1939-2017) had a collection of Good Luck Swastika tokens with over than 1600 pieces and wrote a book on these tokens. His collection was sold and I bought the Herbert Jones token as I used to live in Berkeley. The direction of the arms of the swastika is meaningless for these items and they can be found left or right facing.
It is not a swastika . The Nazis twisted the symbol to the right, half way, This is simply a traditional good luck symbol.
In Japan they have these also. In Japan they are called Manji. The difference between the one's in Japan and the ones representing Nazi / Neo Nazi is the ones in Japan spin clockwise while the Nazi / Neo Nazi ones spin counter clockwise. Here's a little info on it in regards to how it is used in Japan. https://kotaku.com/the-buddhist-swastika-becomes-popular-slang-in-japan-1822404738
