"Follow The Leader" coin thread BY THEME (for ALL types of coins, tokens, and medals)

"Bertha's Boy"

World War I love token on 1916 French franc, from a fallen Canadian soldier to his mother



Larger obverse picture

Larger reverse picture

Host coin: 1916 French 1-franc piece, KM844.1, .835 silver/.1342 oz., 23 mm. Obverse: original French "Sower" design, unaltered. Reverse: "1 Franc" and olive branch planed off, date and legends intact, re-engraved "Bertha / V. Shaver / Montreal / Canada" in script. Ex-"pondcollections" (eBay), 2/9/2016.

World War I "trench art" pieces and love tokens are commonly found on the French 1- and 2-franc "Sower" coins of the period. This one is visually unremarkable, though the engraved script was well done. At first glance, it's not even as interesting as the "dog tag" or "ID badge" pieces that typically bear a soldier's name, service number, and/or unit.

However, I decided to research it because of the presence of a full name (first, last, and middle initial), to see if I could pin down more information about the onetime owner of this piece. It turned out I found very little about Bertha V. Shaver of Montreal, Canada, who was obviously the recipient of the love token, but through her name, I was able to determine with a reasonable amount of certainty that the engraving was commissioned by her son, Harold Clinton Shaver, who was serving with the Canadian Army Medical Service in France during the Great War.

Since the date was left intact on the host coin, we know it was engraved no earlier than 1916. Of course the war ended in November of 1918, but the life of Private Harold Shaver was tragically cut short before that, on May 20, 1918, from wounds suffered the day before in a German air raid on the hospital he was probably working in. Thus we can pretty definitively date the engraving on the coin to sometime between October of 1917, when Harold Shaver enlisted, and May 19, 1918, when he was mortally wounded.

As a further compelling detail to this poignant tale, I discovered a newspaper photograph of Harold Clinton Shaver on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial website. So this is now the second time I've been able to "put a face to the coin", and it was a young and handsome face at that.

May Harold and Bertha Shaver rest in peace, and I hope the joy of their eventual reunion in heaven eclipsed the suffering they experienced during their earthly existence.



Data source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial

(Note that there are some minor discrepancies in the sources. His death date was given as May 19th below, though that was the date of his wounding. He died on May 20th.)

 

Some cool bulk bag cherrypicks I got for only about 25c each, or less. It was a very sweet bag.

 

Now, based on that "Muscular Maiden Manhandling Munitions" seen on that "Für Vaterland" kriegsgeld token from Frankenthal, let's change the theme to "intimidating ladies you don't wanna mess with".

@Stork's machine-gun toting mama from her avatar comes to mind.

 

Intimidating ladies you don't wanna mess with.

 

Britannia always has a trident handy, in case she needs to go out frog-gigging. That's a bit intimidating.

Not as intimidating as WW1 Artillery Lady, however.

Let's see those intimidating and/or well-armed women.

 

Nobody switch themes until @Stork has had the chance to upload some more Intimidating Women, please.

In the meantime, if you have fierce ladies of your own to post, let's see 'em!

 

Carry on with fierce or intimidating ladies, then, and after that, wherever y'all might choose to lead us.