These are some really cool Tokens, most are listed as being from the 1850's! I had one delivered to me today, maybe some of you know this already but some are signed by Lauer and some aren't. Also, there's different sizes, and I never realized that either. Honestly, this was a very educational buy for me so I will share. The prices on ebay are going through the roof!! I should have bought them and started a small collection years ago, anyone collect these? Below is the 19.5mm one with a nice die crack and below that is the bigger one at 27.5 that was delivered to me today. If you have any please post a pic!
Nice one! Lauer and Spiel Marke made a ton of Tokens and Medals for the USA, someone should write a book and if there's already a book, let me know! Here's an 1894 Midwinter unlisted So Called Dollar made by Lauer. I was bidding on it but lost! That's okay though, as I didn't even know it existed until I started bidding on it! https://www.ebay.com/itm/393163848990
Here you go. "American Game Counters" (1972) by Rulau & Fuld. Free download. https://archive.org/details/tamsjournal1262toke
The Washington spiel marken are also covered in "Medallic Portraits of Washington" (1885) by William Baker. Another free download and still a standard reference for early Washingtonia. https://archive.org/details/medallicportrait00bake
In addition to the books already mentioned, I have the following books on gaming counters: 1983 - American Counters, Part I, Double Eagle & Eagle Gold, L. B. Fauver 1989 - American Counters, Part II, Half Eagle Gold, L. B. Fauver 1989 - American Counters, Part III, Three Dollar & Quarter Eagle Gold, L.B. Fauver 1990 - American Counters, Part IV, One Dollar Gold & One Dollar Silver, L.B. Fauver I am missing Part V 1990 - American Counters, Part VI, Latin America & Canada, L.B. Fauver 1972 - U.S. & English Counters, TAMS journal, Vol. 12, #6 1974 - English Card Counters, Spiel Marken, TAMS Journal, Vol. 14, #4 1952 - Revised List of American Game Counters, Howard H. Kurth ???? - The Counters of Nuremburg, O.P. Eklund 1994 - Handbook For Gaming Token Collectors, Don and Jean 1981 - The Casting Counter and the Counting Board, F.P. Barnard You can count me as a collector of counters. I haven't inventoried them, but my guesstimate is that I have 500+ counters. My favorite books on the topic are the American Counter series. They have nice, large die photos and easy to find die pair listings, complete with rarity ratings and (outdated) values. The TAMS Journals cover many of the English and German counters, but identification is tedious as one has to match the counter to a written description, of which there are many. They have some photos, but many additional ones are needed to improve upon the existing information. The TAMS Journals are usually available on ebay. Most of the others are a bit more difficult to locate. I know at least one of the books cost me $100.