"Marshside Stork" (love token on 1861 USA Seated dime)

"Marshside Stork" (love token on 1861 USA Seated dime)


Host coin: 1861 USA Seated dime, holed.

Obverse: Seated Liberty, unaltered, with metallic stain from the old chain or loop it must have once been attached to.

Reverse: Stork in marsh scene, surrounded by garlanded border, "R.W.S." initials below.
Ex-eBay, October, 2011.

At the time I bought this, I was collecting love token Seated dimes by date. I spotted this pictorial 1861 with a marsh scene and a stork on it. It isn't exceptional engraving, but pretty darn nice. Typically I'd spend up to fifty bucks on a really nice pictorial, and this one had a Buy-It-Now price of $49.50. That's a tiny bit pricey, but not out of the question for a piece like this. I had some eBay Bucks saved up so I used them to buy it.

If we want to be nitpicky, the obverse could be a little better on this piece, but really it's all about the engraving. And this is better than most (despite my rather poor scans seen above).

But here's the clincher... this piece has MY initials on it. Not just one initial... not first and last initials... but all THREE of my initials, in sequence! Love token specialists will tell you how rare an occurrence it is to find all of your initials in the proper sequence like that. I'm no mathematician, but they're rather long odds. It is a bit more common to find three initials in a tangled monogram of some kind.

Also, I live in coastal Georgia's Marshes of Glynn, where scenes like this are common. Coincidentally, a stork flew right in front of my car the day I bought this! So you see why I had to buy it. Call it destiny.

I used to own a different dime with a stork on it, but this one is special. I think the stork motif was used because these love tokens were used for christening gifts in the Victorian era.

This was part of my first love token collection. When I sold that, I gave this piece to my mother, along with some other pieces that had her name and names or initials of her grandchildren on them. But now I want it back, since I'm starting a third love token collection! I guess I'll just have to find another "RWS". What are the odds? Hmm...

 

I saw a bunch of storks there in the marsh the other day.

And there is one @Stork here, too, who I've known a good while.

 

Actually, that's Old English, not cursive script. And while you could make an argument that that is a "C", to me it looks like an Old English "T".

A "C" wouldn't have had that stroke at the top left, usually.

The two letters are rendered almost identically, but the "T" will usually have that stroke at top left ... but it usually continues over to make the top bar of the "T".






So your letter there is an odd hybrid. It's either a "C" with an extra stroke added at top left (which is not unknown), or a somewhat stunted, fat "T".

Could arguably be either one, I suppose.

That's a nice looking love token. Simple, but nice. Do your other coins and yourself a favor and get a pair of pliers and crimp the staples on that 2x2 holder flat before they scratch something!

Oh, and speaking of initials, I have another Seated dime on it that has "LM" on it for "Lord Marcovan". Had an 1851 gold dollar love token with "LM" as well.

"JC" shouldn't be too hard to find, given time. I'll keep my eyes open for one.

 

2023 update/thread resurrection.

My mother passed in December of 2021 and my sister Elizabeth inherited her charm bracelet watch band with all the love tokens I’d given her.

Elizabeth asked if I wanted any of the coins back. I told her no- keep them on Mom’s charm bracelet. Except this one with my initials (shown above), which I wouldn’t mind having back. But it is not on Mom’s bracelet/watch band. We don’t know what became of it. Elizabeth said she’d keep an eye out for it.

 

Thanks for doing that math stuff!

I guess the odds improve slightly (though are still rather long), if one were to include pieces that have R, W, and S in a monogram, in no particular order.

I suppose you can see how gobsmacked I was to discover the piece in the OP. I couldn’t hit that Buy-It-Now button fast enough!

I do hope it turns back up in Mom’s belongings.