Hello all, I had this for several years now and it's been stored away until now. My 8 year old son is the new proud owner and so we both would like to hopefully know what it is. Seems to say LOPEZ? Thank you very much!
I'm stumped, and I'm usually reasonably good at the "guess the coin type" game, at least for Western coins. This looks pretty old. Not ancient, but old. Perhaps as old as the 17th or 18th century, I'd say at a wild guess, based upon its appearance and style.
Looks like a 19th century hacienda token from Mexico or there about. I know there were a number of Lopez hacienda tokens some uniface with the name Lopez on the other side with designs above and below.Hope this helps you in your search
This sounds completely plausible to me, and would account for the somewhat cruder appearance of the thing, which made me guess a bit earlier in time.
As the material appears to suit this suggestion - I think it is a lead bag seal of some sort. These were common across the globe, used to seal everything from grain to Christmas ornaments, and this very much suits the general form / appearance.
This too would sound somewhat plausible to me except the color looks more coppery to me than lead, and most bag/bale seals I’m accustomed to seeing have some kind of protrusion(s) from which they were attached? Dunno.
@lordmarcovan I took the colour variance to be encrustations... if not, there is often a mottling to the alloy used. Also, seals (especially ground finds) often show no traces of attachment. The more I look at it, the more I am inclined to say seal.
I like this, but was unable to find it in Hacienda tokens. Perhaps someone else might have better luck. http://numismatics.org/digitallibrary/ark:/53695/nnan69119#fig-187
