P.T. Barnum made a forture with "humbugs." He was the most flamboyant American showman of the 19th century. He became famous for Barnium's museum which was located in New York City. During that period he issued a group of tokens. Here is what I think is a complete design set of them. Although he was an American, all of his tokens were made by foreign producers. The Barnum Museum token. This is tough one that usually sells for $500 to $600 in U.S. auctions. The Tom Thumb coach token. I don't know how many Tom Thumb coaches there may have been, but there is one in a museum here in Florida. This token is also scarce and sells for several hundred dollars. Here are two pieces which said to be gambling tokens. One has Queen Victoria on the reverse. I have found this to be the most common Barnum token And this one has a reproduction of the U.S. Capped Bust coinage. I recently bought this one from a German dealer via the MA-Shops system. It takes a long time for the items to be shipped from Europe, but it has worked the two times I have used it. This is first example of this piece I have seen. There have to be more, but I never ran into them.
Interesting, I never realized there were so many Barnum tokens. I did once find one metal detecting with "Chang the Chinese Giant", unfortunately in typical horrid dug condition.
By the way those Tokens are in amazing conditions. That Arcingdie crack is cool in my world. I will have to track down mine and see if the arcing mark on my reverse is a scratch, hair (happens sometimes because of my beard) or a die crack. The mark on mine is in a different spot.
