Hard Times & Civil War Tokens thread

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All you need is the witch on a broomstick and you'll have the trifecta of tokens.

 

Late to this thread like I was to the So-Called thread, because I had to dig my stuff out.

I have one each of the Hard Time and Civil War tokens. I’m fairly new to these aspects of our great hobby and, like the So-Called pieces, I’m seeing a lot that I would like to add to my collection. These are pieces that I like to look for in my weekly auction perusals, along with everything else!

 

These Boutwell CWTs are very difficult to identify as to variety. Many types of "curly cues' and other design elements to decipher. A great looking token though.

Bruce

 

Don't spoil it...just let him dream.

Bruce

 

One of my favorite Civil War token makers was Henry D. Higgins who made the Indiana primitives. Higgins made copy dies from tokens he liked, but his best creations were the dies he made himself from scratch. Higgins made eye glasses, brameters (farmers used them to predict the weather) and tokens. Here is his business store card



Higgins was strongly pro-Union. Here was one of his patriotic tokens. The reverse is from a line of the Liberty Bell.



Higgins copies the obverse die (left) from token that was made by the Scoville company (right). His copy dies always lost some detail.



Here is another one. Higgins felt that he had add "CAPITAL" to make sure people knew what it was.



The Schovel original.



Higgins made a copy of the Monitor token. Here is his piece.



Here is Higgins' token next to the original.



Higgins was not known to the hobby until his granddaughter came forward in the 1950s with the story about how “she helped grandpa make the coins.” She quickly became a member of the Civil War Tokens Society and shared some stories.

All Indiana primitives are scarce and most of them are worn. I was really happy when I acquired one in Mint State

 

Yeah, I always liked the Higgins token too. A very nice group you have there.

Bruce

 

The Higgins "primitives" are really interesting. I have a worn Monitor and a graded optician token.

 

I never had a Monitor when I was collecting CWTs but always liked them. I'd love to see yours, ksparrow, if you can come up with a pic.

Bruce

 

a few years back I was able to put together a set of them, here are a few:

 

Thanks for the pics. If I remember correctly there are quite a few varieties of Monitors. Not sure why I never got one for my collection.

Bruce

 

They have become quite a bit more expensive, even the common ones.

 

Here are a few more: