Hi everyone, My name is Tony and I am new to this forum... My brother-in-law recently found, while metal detecting, an 1861 Confederate States of America 1 cent coin. He doesn't know anything about it or it's value. Could someone please help me with this... Thanks, Tony
Unfortunately, it's probably a modern copy. Meaning no real value. There are less than 100 known "originals" with any real value at all. There is a short bit about them in the Red Book - A Guide Book of United States Coins, by R.S. Yeoman. Most public libraries will have a copy or two of it. If you want to, take the coin to your local coin dealer. He (or she) should be able to show you how to tell whether it's real or not.
Can you post a clear photo? That would help. As mentioned above, there are tons of very good (deceptive) copies and the odds are greatly in favor of your piece being one of these.
http://images.collectors.com/Articles/ConfedCentRestrikeSilver_150.jpg The CSA contacted a Philadelphia jewerly company known as Bailey & Company to strike Confederate cents. Bailey & Company hired Robert Lovett to sink the dies but after sinking them and striking 12 pieces Lovett got scarred and hid everything. It was when he accidently spent one of the CSA cents in a bar some ten years later that John Haseltine and J. Colvin Randall got wind of them, after the bar tender contacted them and Haseltine figured out that they were Lovett's work. Haseltine ended up buying the coin from the bar tender and the other 11 from Lovett along with the dies. And Randall along with Peter L. Krider used the dies to strike 3 gold pieces, 5 silver pieces and 55 copper pieces before the dies shattered.
While the quantities quoted by longnine009 match what Haseltine is quoted as saying in his 1908 recollections, they conflict with earlier given figures. In 1874, Haseltine and Randall published a "Circular to Collectors" dated April 2, 1874. Within was described the discovery of both coins and dies as well as the restriking of 7 gold, 12 silver and 55 copper examples. The original intent was to strike 500 copper examples, but on the 55th strike the collar burst, badly damaging (breaking) the dies. The 1874 figures appear to be closer to the truth, as 5 gold examples are known to exist today (3 have been graded by PCGS). In 1961, Robert Bashlow took the rusted and broken dies and had copies made by the transfer process. These Bashlow restrikes (which are not truly restrikes) have very irregular surfaces, and are not at all like the 1874 restrikes.
I alwsys have liked "tokens" like this but never have found any at the right time....Sometime I would like to find some of the "Hard Times Tokens" and the "Alaska Rural Rehabilitaion Corporation Tokens of 1935"--I think they look soooo neat.. Speedy
Speedy, if you are willing to message me your address, I will send a couple tokens your way. I am getting ready to leave on a working "vacation" in a few days, so I will not be able to send them until the end of the month though.
The Bashlows were mainly truck in Bronze, Goldine, and Silver. I have the first two, but have been unlucky on ebay in getting the silver. I also have a trial struck in tin (or is it zinc?). Other metals were used for small quantities by Bashlow.
