I've always wanted one of this type, and I've been hunting for a decent one for a while. Recently picked this one up.... It's got a fairly interesting and dynamic patina, which is always fun. I'm a big fan of ships on coins, and having the Monitor ironclad on it is so freaking cool. I love the fact that the ship is not static....there's waves in the water, smoke from the chimney, and smoke from the guns, and you can see which way the ship is moving and wind blowing from the way the smoke is moving and flag is waving. Such attention to detail in such a little coin. Feel free to share your civil war tokens in this thread.
Yours is WAY cooler!!! But I do have something quasi-similar: A copper Civil War-era exonumia 'coin' from Whitehall, NY, produced between 1861-1865, which (as I'm sure you know) were the years of the war. I bought it due to a confluence of my interest in coins, Civil War history, and Atherton family genealogy. Technically it is a "Fuld 985a" Civil War Store Card Token. These merchant tokens were produced as a direct result of a high-demand and low-supply of small US coinage.
That is the nicest Monitor token I have ever seen..... I made the deep south my home after I left the Army and one of the reasons (besides southern belles) was the fascination that I had for the history here. I have accumulated my fair share of civil war tokens over the years, but this one is my all time favorite. "Shoot Him On The Spoot".... Always wondered what became of the die-sinker after this blunder.
Here is a run of Monitor Civil War Token varieties. This is an "Indiana Primitive." Henry Higgins, who was optometrist, maker of barometers and a general jack of all trades, made these pieces by copying the variety shown above. All Indiana Primitive tokens are scarce to rare. These tokens are called "primitives" because of the hand made dies Higgins created which included wild lettering, horns and flurishes. This is the second version of the tokens made by the Scoville Company in Connecticut. These Monitor dies were made by Charles Hörter who was located in New York City.
