Have you found pictures of another one of these that does NOT match all the things that people find suspicious on this example? I've dealt with some tokens of this type though not a whole lot. My instinct and eye tells me it's a genuine piece.
My best guess is that it is a fake, but one made long ago, contemporary with the real ones. My first thought was, "Wow, $5 is a lot for a food token" Also, and you my correct me, but this does not seem to be such a lucrative thing to fake. Most likely scenario is a Vietnamese hit on a way to supplement his living, and avoid the heavy duty trouble that comes with counterfeiting real money
No, I've never seen one. The seller had another and a bronze $1 in similar style. None are reported in bronze in this style in the catalog. I think if you saw it in hand you may change your mind. I'm going to keep my eyes open and look around to see if I can find anything else.
Seller has another one up. Same issues. Check out the rim: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vietnam-War...388940?hash=item3abfa55e0c:g:GdQAAOSwZQxW6rW1
I did a bit of research, was only able to find a few that had images. They all match. Would really be interesting to see a confirmed genuine example. Also, which one is the bronze one? All I see in this style are brass pieces affected by the hot and humid climate.
My mistake. Meant to type brass. If you you search a little on eBay you'll see plenty of examples of how the brass ones corrode over there. With reseller listing another one that has the same exact flaw on the rim as mine I'm pretty convinced this is a fake. I would like to see a genuine one but Bows and Cunningham didn't list one, didn't list one in any variety of style for the enlisted club and only one from the officers club of a very different style and I believe it was aluminum. Now the enlisted club had tokens in the same style, in denominations up to $1, but they were struck in aluminum.
Interesting...in the time since I posted this the image has changed. However the token exhibits rim irregularities in the same spot and has the same holes.
Below MESS looks like ,maybe, remenants of a casting sprue. Something looks messed up in the MESS area.
I think the casting sprue was filed off. There is one spot on the rim that is obviously filed down...don't remember where but I think it was a different spot. I should get some shots of the rim. It's really bad. I did a Google image search and turned up three others, two $5 and one 50¢. While the images are small they all show the same pitting or cast bubbles or whatever they are. I own around 300 military trade tokens and none have anything similar. This was a good lesson for me - I need to pay more attention because they're now faking these tokens.
I don't know much about these tokens as you know, Jack, but after reading all the opinions and looking at the pictures, my guess would be that it's a cast fake. It doesn't "look" right somehow. If, as you say, they're starting to fake these, then you may have picked one up inadvertently. Just my opinion. Bruce
