I have a Civil War token with the USS Monitor on the obverse and "Our Navy" on the reverse. Many US coins have 13 stars, but this one has 12 stars over the gunboat. The little I learned about tokens of this variety shows that 12 stars is common and not a rare variety or error. Why 12 instead of 13? This token will be mine only a few more days: I have it up on Ebay under the title "NGC MS 64 Monitor / Our Navy Civil War token." Here are some photos to save you the trouble of looking it up. Thanks for giving me the benefit of your expertise. View attachment 137743
For some reason the 1864 Monitor token like yours only has 12 stars while the 1863 dated variety has 13. I don't know for sure why, but it could very well be a die sinker's error. These mistakes were quite common on CWT's and even early U.S. Federal coinage. When I get a chance I'll read through my references and see if I can find an answer for you David. Bruce
Almost certainly die sinkers error, either through a miscount or from poor placement of the initial stars which resulted in not enough room for the 13th star. (Can't see the image well enough to determine which it might be.)
I can't easily find why it would have twelve stars but I would surmise it probably is not an "error". The 13 stars would have represented the original 13 states, but at the time of the civil war, the US had 33 states, of which 11 seceded. Some states joined during the civil war, so that added a couple to each side. This may just have to be a mystery until some obscure text can be found to say why the 12 stars.
May I revive this conversation? I also have another civil war token (but unrelated to the USS Monitor) with 12 stars. I don't think it's an error, and I've been trying to find out why 12. Read so many articles on the web but all led to dead ends. Does anyone have any new revelation? Thanks all. Just very curious and it's bugging me. ?
It would appear that this "12 stars" thing was actually a bit of a phase here in the US. This paragraph was taken from the San Mateo County historical association website: "Twelve-star flags appear to be "Exclusionary" flags. This was all the rage from about the mid-1850's to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 when President Lincoln insisted U.S. Flags bear the full complement of 34 stars despite the secession of a number of states." (Retrieved from www.crwflags.com/fotw/flats/us-12.html-2/25/2017)" So, it would appear that the designer of this coin preferred the 12 star flag over the 34 star flag.
CWT designers were civilians. Their only goal was to sell their product. A company in the north tried to design and make coins for the south. When he was informed that completing the contract would be construed as treason he buried the dies. They were dug up and used to make confederate coins years later. In the case of the Monitor token he released them. The later issue was not the same because it was copied and made by someone else. 1864 tokens are rare because that was the year CWT were outlawed. From that point forward CWT had to be dated 1863 or earlier so the makers quickly changed their dies to make them legal. In some cases the 1864 was the first issue and the 1863 was the second for that legality reason.
The Monitor token cat number (1863) 240/31 has 13 stars, the (1864) 241/336 only have 12; simply a matter of die variety. I'm looking at mine right now, and the field with 13 stars looks crowded. Could be the issuer wanted a less cluttered field in the later issues. It's a very popular token. It's the only CWT series I collect as I do have a historical and modelling interest in Civil War ironclads of both North and South. The history is quite intriguing.
