1680 French coin w/ U.F.O.?

OUCH!! I could buy alot of nice coins with the kind of money it would take to buy any of those references!!

 

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I can see the need and it is easy to justify spending a couple hundred dollars on one book for a series/topic that you are devoted to, but I had never even heard of jetons until I started this thread. Kinda sparked a little curiosity in me. Smart enough to know to buy the book before the coin. After all, the first coin book that I ever bought (besides the 1997 Red & Blue Books) was Breen's Encyclopedia. My dealer was shocked to see that I was willing to drop $100 on a book so early into the hobby. But he was the one who would sell me his unsold back issues of Coin World for $1.00 an issue, and with the knowledge gained from that, I knew that it was a worthy investment.

Now, in order to justify spending $300-$500 on a reference to something that I just learned of, well, I would have to totally drop my U.S. collecting, and concentrate on jetons. Which I'm sure would be fun and fulfilling, I have just worked pretty hard on my U.S. and I'm not sure if I'm ready to do as GDJMSP has.

Although, with the U.S. market booming, alot of new collector's may not end up sticking around by the time the State quarters end. Sooner or later the U.S. market may come crashing down, and until then maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to collect something else.

Decisions, Decisions......

 

Neither book is truly `adequate' in my opinion, and it all depends how your interest takes you as to which will be the better longer term investment (if not both). Feuardent is a fairly good listing with legends used but little background...and in French. Mitchiner is in English and gives a better perspective on the subject.

I started off armed only with a hard back sales catalogue produced by Victor Gadoury entitled `Jetons' and dated 1986 (it often appears on ebay for around $10 or so as does a later one. Both are worth their weight in gold IMHO). That gave me a broad (but imperfect) outline of the scope of the subject and it illustrates many pieces. I became hooked on just getting examples that matched those in that catalogue!...all the while the more I was getting into the subject the more the price of the books became justifiable.

Another exceptionally good resource on the subject of jetons is :

http://www.cgb.fr/boutique/index.html

look for `jetons' on the left column of that page. It will lead you to some 15 or so catalogues of jetons they have been involved with selling. bear in mind that prices are *much* higher than you will see on ebay. After all, Paris is at the heart of that particular market.

A few hours sojourn through these online catalogues will either whet your appetite even more....... or kill it stone dead. ;-)

 

Hello,
I think that the scene comes from the roman mithology, it could be the Jupiter's shield ( Ancile ) that protects the country from the storms and lightnings (Ovidium, Fasti, book III - http://www.biblio-net.com/lett_cla/testi/fasti_liber_iii.htm). The shield fell from the sky at the feet of the roman king Numa Pompilio. The promise of the god was that Rome will be protected until the romans take care of the sacred shield.
The sentence "OPPORTUNUS ADEST" means something like "It is present in our time of need" ("Il est present à propòs" in french).

I found another jeton with the same shield, held by an arm:
http://www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/jeton_bouclier2.jpg
In this one we can clearly see that the shield protects from the lightnings coming out from the clouds.

Months ago I made a web page about this french "UFO coin"
http://www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_7.htm
It is part of a big work about alleged UFOs in ancient art, mostly in Italian but with some chapters also in English:
http://www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_eng.htm


Diego Cuoghi

 

I think you have something there. The significance would probably have been altered to a much more Christian (Christianissimus) ethic in keeping with the times. As such I would have thought it to portray `He (Jove / God) is there in time of need' (as opposed to a shield or whatever being there in time of need).

The picture is one thing. It's the underlying significance that is all important, and which tends to get lost with the passage of time.

http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/jetons/j17/gb/monnaiesgb2e42.html?depart=22&nbfic=586

The significance is that the person depicted as holding the shield is the new Lord Protector of Burgundy (Le Duc D'Enghien) who has approached the Council of Burgundy for better funding with which to better prepare and defend the state from any and all threats that may fall out of the blue. The jeton celebrates Burgundy's decision to agree to Le Duc D'Enghiens requests and in so doing it seeks to `paint the picture' of the anticipated benefits of granting a bigger and better budget. That is, The protective `shield' of Le Duc will cover all of Burgundy and cast aside each and every threat that befalls.

I'm still not convinced that the item in the original jeton is a `shield' (as opposed to a chariot wheel) but I am open to that being the case. As such (at least to me) it remains not quite 100% `identified' but not quite `unidentified' . One thing we know for certain however is that there was no thought of any little green men in their flying machines when the jeton was designed ;-)

 

I found other pictures of ancient shields and modern reproductions. I found very interesting the "targe shields" with a sword in the centre, like the one in the french jeton:

http://www.tierracelta.com.ar/militaria/targe_3.jpg

http://www.allscots.co.nz/targe3smleft.jpg

http://home.messiah.edu/~gdaub/armor/pictures/medrep/targe.jpg

 

It is well known that many early mediaeval shields had a `spike' in the centre. It is also well known that many chariot wheels also had sword blades attached to them at the hub of the wheel (just like the thing in the jeton looks like), the purpose of which was to literally cut a path through the enemy ranks.

If you look at the first jeton in this thread, the protrusion is certainly not centred. It is at an angle to the hub, much in keeping with the way a blade on a chariot wheel would be.

Of course we could say that that small factor might be due to the poor art work of the jeton. However, by the same principle we can equally say it is that same poor art work that gives UFO believers the false impression that it is supposed to be a flying saucer.

The jeton you discovered on cgb.fr website is from the same era as the first jeton. The design is (as you note) a pretty good match. Now...where's it's spike / blade?

While the original jeton relates symbolically to `God' being there as required, I think it comes down to whether or not you think he would be arriving with his shield pointing down in a hostile manner, as if in defence against the land, or whether he is arriving in his celestial chariot to save the day (for whoever) against the foe.

Of course the item concerned could equally be an ornate `office tidy' type implement used to skewer loose bits of paper that might be around on his desk. I find that these things has `saved the day' for me on many an occasion ;-)

Ian

 

Not too likely, there is only one confirmed piece and a second rumored one. The piece shown in this thread is owned by Ken Bressett, former ANA President and editor of the Redbook.

 

Hmm...yes AND no to that one.

The same `ufo' design appears on different jetons at different times (and with different obverses). One type has the conjoined shields of France and Navarre obverse. I think the one that Ken Bresset has has a flower in the rain obverse (?). (I was going to ask if you had an image of the other side of that particular jeton but have since got a copy of the image).

Yet another type has Aequitas on the obverse. Here's one of the Aequitas type from CGB's web pages (from their jetons catalogue no. XVIII). Note that the date 1656 is earlier than the 1680's claimed for the Ken Bresset one. While Ken Bresset may only know of two of the type he possesses, here indeed is proof positive that other similar types do indeed exist.



The obverse legend reads: Camerae Computorum Neustriae (That translates as : The `Counting House of Normandy' aka Revenue Collection). It shows a scene of Aequitas (representing the administration?) receiving that which is due from the populace (?). The reverse probably depicts what the money is being used for, ie the defence budget / protection of the land.

To my mind, (fried as it might be) there seems to be a common theme of defence (and taxation?) to these type of jetons. The one with the conjoined shields for example is actually part of the series of jetons `Ordinaire des Guerres'. That series is quite prolific and i would therefore imagine that there should be quite a few still kicking about.

In other words, for anyone after one of these jetons with the wheel / shield thing on them....as Mulder would say `they ARE out there'. I think you'll need to look long and hard for them though. ;-)

Ian