Good post Tim. It's interesting how manufacturers of Hard Times and Civil War tokens at times made their products to mimic regular U.S. coinage. To keep it legal though they always added or subtracted something so it couldn't be considered a counterfeit. Sometimes, like in your example, the "not" of "not one cent" would be scratched off by someone for the purpose of trying to deceive the unwary into thinking it was a "real" cent. Many Civil War tokens used a variation of the Indian Head Cent obverse for the same reasons. Bruce
Thanks for the info iv had the hard ship cent for some time now I don't know a lot about them or what they were for . just new that was what it was called great info thanks again
No problem tim. The Hard times era, at least as far as token issues are concerned, generally includes those issued between the years 1832-1844. What's known as the Era of Hard Times actually started in 1837 as a result of a financial panic due to Andrew Jackson's "war" with the Second Bank of The United States. There were other causes as well, like rampant land speculation in the west and efforts to curb it, and so on, but the effect was to cause a run on the banks. People hoarded coins in circulation as a result which led to the private issuance of tokens for the purpose of making change for financial transactions. These are what we call Hard Times Tokens today. It was an interesting era in U.S. history, and makes for a challenging series to collect. Bruce
Actually should say nice token and coin. When I first looked at it I saw the obverse and thought that it all looks wrong - then I saw the obverse. Then it all made cents.
