I have long thought that the Statue of Liberty Commemorative Half Dollar is one of the most attractive coins in the series. The only thing is, I wish that it had been made of silver.
Here is a fairly rare New York City merchant token. I bought because of the pro-Union message on the obverse. When father and son, Melvin and George Fuld wrote their book on Civil War Store Cards, they did a remarkably good job on their rarity ratings from the sample they had, which was to my understanding about 100,000 pieces. They did miss the boat a few of them, however. One was the New York Sanitary Fair token. The Sanitary Fairs were fundraisers that the Sanitary Commission held to raise money for bandages and cleaning supplies for the troops. During the 19th century and earlier wars, a soldier stood as much or more of a chance of dying in camp or in the hospital from a disease or infection than he did on the battlefield. The New York City fair, which was held in April 1864, was a huge event. It raised $1.1 million for the cause. The Fulds rated this token as an R-4, which means that one should be able to find one at reasonable price with a moderate amount of searching. The token is actually a rarity, which is odd since the fair was quite large. Perhaps the token is rare because the die cutter got the date wrong, May instead of April. Maybe he delivered those pieces after the event. There was a similar token that was made for a fair that was held on Nantucket Island. That had to be a much smaller event, and yet that token is not overly scarce. This piece is actually low grade for one of these pieces. They are often found in Mint State at high prices. This one is "an economy model," but it's still worth close to $1,000. The New York Merchants’ Exchange occupied an entire city block bordered by Washington, West, Fulton and Vesey Streets. This token was issued by someone who did business there. Speculation is that he was a spice broker. My interest in this piece stems from the reverse message, “Live and Let Live” with agricultural products featured. Most collectors view this as a pro-Southern copperhead token. Many in New York City were southern sympathizers. They wanted to continue to trade with the South, and the war interfered and then precluded that. Part of business was in the slave trading industry, and the New City businessmen didn’t want their revenue flow interrupted. At one time there were proposals for New York City to secede from the Union so that it could trade with both sides. One time New York City mayor, Fernando Wood, was a well-known pro-Southern copperhead. I have many more New York tokens, but my fingers are getting tired. I didn't realize there was this much to say about them until I started writing.
How about Rhode Island’s very own Roger Williams on a New York medal: A devout man of G-d, and a very outspoken abolitionist.
