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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cwtokenman, post: 51555, member: 2100&quot;]Cool find. Always an interesting path to trod when pondering where a coin has been or who may have held/spent it.</p><p><br /></p><p>The token you linked to is 1/2 the same as yours (the cannon side). The Indian is different, however. The token you linked to on ebay is id 81/351a, rarity R1. The token your honey found is 79/351a, also rarity R1 (over 5000 known, considered very common). In case you could not make out the date it is 1863. The one linked to on ebay has a book value of about $15, yours would be considerably less due to its poor condition, perhaps less than a dollar. Many high grade examples exist for both of these varieties of cwts.</p><p><br /></p><p>What you have is known as a patriotic Civil War token. These were less expensive for merchants to purchase than the custom ones with specific merchant advertising on them. Cost of the patriotics to merchants was about 1/3 cent each, so it was very profitable for merchants to use these tokens. They were readily accepted and used as &quot;real&quot; money, at least most of the time. Because of some instances where they were not redeemed by the issuer, CW tokens were the cause for Federal legislation prohibiting individuals and businesses from issueing money. The Federal government also noted the widespread acceptance of these tokens, and changed the US cents size/composition to pattern these tokens.</p><p><br /></p><p>The dies used to make your token are ascribed to the Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut. This company is still in business, and I believe is listed among the Fortune 500. They struck both patriotics and store card Civil War tokens. Most of their dealings were with merchants stretching throughout most of the eastern states to about as far west as Ohio. But with the travels of so many soldiers/people of the day, they could likely also be found across a much wider area. As a side note, for a tally on similar dies, there are six crossed cannons of a style similar to yours, as well as 66 different Indian heads. Die 351 was only paired with 4 of the Indian heads, as well as one Liberty head die. A number of different metals were also used, with copper being the most common.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The really scarce ones don&#039;t show up very often. Something like 75 to 80 per cent of the over 10,000 varieties of cwts have 20 or less examples known. If you wish to learn more, Bryon Kanzinger published &quot;The Civil War Token Collectors Guide&quot; in 2002. This book will give some good background overview type of info, listings for various theme collections, and provide the only comprehensive value guide that I have seen for cwts. However, this book will not enable you to identify cwts. For that, the Fulds published two books, one for patriotics, and one for store cards. These two books will provide identification tools and more in-depth info, but will cost more as well. If you decide to persue cwts, you will definitely need all three.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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