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Message:: [QUOTE="ambro, post: 335634, member: 11143"]Well I will try to tell you what I know about this coin. For a good reference on the Confederate Cent, I suggest reading "The Lovett Cent a Confederate Story" by Harold Levi and George Corell. This very well researched work covers this coin in all its incarnations. It is an interesting story, full of history and if you are interested in the CSA cent or its relations, well worth having in your library. In the strictest interpertation of the word, the Bashlow 'restrike' is not *actually* a restrike since it was struck from transfer dies made from the original Lovett dies, which had a broken piece and were unable to be reused (and indeed should be preserved). But, all the detail of the original coin is present, including the rather brutal chisel marks on the reverse and the rust pitting on the obverse, a product of the Haseltine enterprise and time. Bashlow was an amazing fellow, he died young rather tragically, but was a real factor in the coin world even today. He never intended to deceive with his restrike of the csa cent, indeed he struck these in double thickness and in coin alignment, instead of medal alignment of the original. He also struck none in coppernickel, to avoid any confusion with the extremely rare originals (between 12 and 16 stuck). Mintage figures for the Bashlow csa restrikes is accepted at 20000 for copper, 5000 for silver and 5000 for Goldine, a brasslike alloy. Numerous others were struck in tin, fiber, gold (unknown if more than one survive) and platinum (most thought melt, though one or two may survive). Bashlow marketed many of these tokens in a plastic holder, which like the slabs to come in two decades, preserved them in nice MS. NGC today will authenticate, grade and slab all Bashlow CSA cents, though PCGS will not. This as I understand it is because it is NOT included in Redbook, since it was not struck with the original (broken and fragile) original dies. In the sense that it is now nearly 50 years old, minted by a well known enterprise in recognized numbers and the ONLY affordable Confederate coin, there are several who feel it should be recognized and included in Redbook. When that occurs, PCGS should slab this coin. The precedent for this is that the New Haven restrikes of the Fugio Cent were also struck from recreated dies....and that is in Redbook and accepted by PCGS. Currently, prices on ebay for single copper Bashlow restrikes average between 35 to 50 dollars. Those in the original plastic holder bring more money. Both the Silver and Goldine tokens average around $125 or so. Sometimes 3 coin sets in the original holder are available, in fact Heritage auction has one now (though it may be sold now), bid was $325 when I looked last. Bashlow also had die trial pieces stuck on a variety of metals, and uniface impressions done from the hub on silver plate. These sell very infrequently, though in the same auction as the 3 piece set, a uniface set was selling, up over $800 when I last looked. Robet Lovett Jr. was from a family of die makers, and done several store cards and tokens at the same general time as he done the Confederate Cent. These use the same basic figure, though lettering obverse and reverse is changed. They include the 1860 Lovett store card PA 353, the Biern Hotel token PA750E-1a, The William Idler store card PA750La-1d, The Allenbach store card PA750B-1d and last but certainly not least, the Marshall House store card, VA103. This token circulated in Richmond Virgina prior to the Civil War, and it is though it was the inspiration for the creation of the Confederate Cent. Lovett kept the CSA cent project a big secret. In his eyes, he was guilty of treason, and subject to great legal trouble if he was discovered. The accepted story is that one day in 1873 he spent one of the original CSA cents in a tavern...which in turn was shown to a coin collector who identified it as Lovetts work. Haseltine pressured Lovett nonstop to buy the dies, and finally in 1874 he began a restrike run, intending to do 500 pieces, to match the restrikes of the confederate half. However, after only 55 copper, 12 silver and 7 gold were stuck, a large portion of the reverse die broke off, ending the restrikes. And so on and so on, the Book mentioned above will fill in all the details and is a great read. Today the CSA cent has been copied, mocked, enlarged, cheapened, and sold to tourists by the handfuls. None have any value, though they do create interest in HOW the coin came to be. I suspect interest in ALL CSA coins and restrikes will peak again shortly, with the 150th annv. of the Civil War occuring.  Hope this helps fill in some of the details![/QUOTE]

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