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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cwtokenman, post: 137450, member: 2100&quot;]JBK is correct, as this is a Hard Times Token. I believe the id number to be HT155, but there was a silvered copper version of this variety as well. Two additional varieties exist, the differences being slightly different locations for the letters/devices.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is a common token (if not silver plated) with an R1 rating and value in VG of $7 ($50 in VG for the silver plated). VG is the lowest grade listed in my reference.</p><p><br /></p><p>Obverse: American Institute/New York</p><p><br /></p><p>Reverse: Copy of a gold medal/awarded to/R &amp; W Robinson,/for the best/military, naval,/sporting,/&amp; plain flat/buttons/1836 (not 1835).</p><p><br /></p><p>If you are interested in some background relating to this token, read on.</p><p><br /></p><p>Robinson&#039;s Jones &amp; Co. received the American Institute medal for their metallic buttons in the fall of 1833, and promptly issued these tokens (not the token you found, but ones pre dating it) to advertise their triumph. The dies were cut by Edward Hulseman at about the same time that he cut the dies for HT70, which was the first of the &quot;I Take Responsibility&quot; political tokens.</p><p><br /></p><p>Robinson&#039;s Jones &amp; Co. traces its formation to Col. Obed Robinson, a blacksmith who made gunlocks during the Revolutionary War. He began making kitchen clocks after 1783, and in 1807 formed a partnership with David Brown to manufacture jewelry.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1812, Obed and his son Otis Robinson produced U.S. Army buttons without button-maker backmarks, and this 1812 initiative launched the first Robinson button enterprise. Otis Robinson, Virgil Blackinton and a skilled British immigrant buttonmaker, Edward Price, later formed their own button firm, which lasted to 1820.</p><p><br /></p><p>Two other of Obed&#039;s sons, Richard and Willard, plus their brother-in-law Virgil Blackinton, began making glass buttons in Attleboro in 1813. Richard Robinson, the principal, turned to metal buttons for the Army Artillery in 1820 with his brother Willard, admitting William Henry Jones and Horace M. Draper as partners by 1826.</p><p><br /></p><p>Robinson&#039;s Jones &amp; Co. was organized in 1828 in Attleboro, Mass. and reorganized as R. &amp; W. Robinson in 1836. Robinson&#039;s Jones employed Edward Hulseman as an in-house engraver from 1833-1836, after which Hulseman moved to New York City.</p><p><br /></p><p>This premier button making firm is now credited with manufacturing the earliest large circulation Hard Times tokens, such as HT70, 25, 152, 153, and 428.</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;New York&quot; on the obverse dies pertains to the location of the American Institute, issuer of the medal of which your item is a reproduction.</p><p><br /></p><p>Willard Robinson was one of the partners. He married a girl of the H. M. &amp; E. I. Richards family. The R. &amp; W. Robinson firm was reorganized from the earlier Robinson&#039;s Jones &amp; Co. firm in 1836. In 1848 they were succeeded in turn by D. Evans &amp; Co. (Daniel Evans was the striker of the Rhode Island series of Civil War token mulings depicting hunting scenes).</p><p><br /></p><p>There is documentary evidence that shows that some of the 1836 Robinson cards were actually struck in 1839.</p><p><br /></p><p>Info from the &quot;Standard Catalog of United States Tokens 1700-1900&quot; by Russell Rulau.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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