Hello. I'm new here and not sure what I'm doing. Please have patience if I'm messing up. Anyway, I have a question. My great grandpa died and I got some of his old coins. One is very old. It is extremely worn and I can tell very little about the coin. I don't know if it is domestic or foreign or if it is in fact a coin at all. Maybe it is a token. Either way, it is dated 1815 on the reverse and the obverse shows an old ship in full sail. I can make out no other writing on it, just a few letters here and there. If anyone has ever seen a coin resembling this, please let me know. I've been trying to ID this coin for ten years and have come up empty. Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that. My email is maverick97@alltel.net. I can email you pics of both sides, but like I said, the coin is horribly worn. I hope someone can help though.
Here is a thread on how to post pictures Posting pix Your coin sounds like it might be a hard times token.
sorry fellas. I tried to attach the pics, but they are too large. I even turned down the resolution of my camera. They are all 700+kb. I don't know how to make them smaller so that they will fit. This is a very expensive camera that takes amazingly clear pics but they are too large it seems. Charlie, could you email me at maverick97@alltel.net? I will then send you the pics and you can look at them and tell me what you think. I will send them to you too Speedy, if you'll email me. Then I can just reply. What is a hard times token? What were they used for? Thank you so much for your interest, patience, and instruction. I do appreciate it.
open the picture with MSpaint or whatever picture program. save as change the file type to Gif or Jpeg that will reduce the size of the file.then repost it
Charlie, thanks for posting the pics for me. I appreciate it. Skrilla, thanks for the help. I just hope someone looks at this thing and tells me what the heck it is. I'm baffled. It seems that the Hard times tokens weren't made until 1832, and this seems to me to read 1815 or 16. What do you folks think? I wrote on the pic, what letters I could see. Do they look right to you? Let me know. Thanx.
The ship will be what identifies it. I've seen something like that before but couldn't begin to tell you what it is. But somebody will come along who can
GDJMSP, I've been looking at tokens all night on the internet, and I've found that ships were overly popular during that time period. It's the reverse I think, that will ID it. It seems to be very unique in that it only has writing and a date on the reverse instead of another picture. I bet it is a token. I just can't figure out which one. It's driving me nuts. With so many coin buffs looking into it though, I can't help but hope someone will figure it out. Thank you for looking and taking an interest. I appreciate it very much sir.
It looks like a Canadian shipping token of some kind. The ship is or is nearly identical to this token and others like it. The listing there says there are 56 varieties of this type of token - and doesn't show the other side. I'm not quite sure the date is 1815. I think it may be 1835, since that's the only year I can find an identical ship design for that ends in a 5. The 1815 tokens look completely different. But don't take my word for it...
I am not exactly sure, but I think it is a token from one of the Canadian Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I or Newfounland). SORRY did not see other post before I posted
I have been doing some research with google and found out the Ships, Colonies and Commerce tokens that circulated in Canada (Maritime colonies that joined Canada) were not dated and minted in England. However I did find that earlier issues were minted in the U.S, but the article I read made to mention if the coins made in U.S were dated or not.
I like a good challenge, but this one got the best of me. I looked through about 1400 pages of token references without a match to either side. From its appearance, I do think that this is a token rather than a coin, at least if it is U.S. I started in the Colonial era and checked several books up through the 1870's, when sailing ship depictions became rather sparce. Unfortunately, not all token descriptions were accompanied by a photo, so I can not positively conclude that it is not a U.S. token. I do not have any non-U.S. references to attempt an id to a foreign source. While there are a fair number of U.S. tokens displayed a sailing ship, the ship on your item is rather distinctive. The shape of what appears to be the outer or flying jib sail is well defined, with its trailing edge only a few degrees off of an imaginary vertical line. Most jib sails on the sailing ships are shown closer to somewhere between a 45 deg. angle to nearly a horizontal position rather than your nearly vertical one. Usually the other ships' examples are much less "triangular" shaped than the one on your token. The most distinctive feature of the ship's sails however, is the shape of the fore course sail (behind and lower than the jib sail), which is shown taller than it is wide. I only saw two other tokens that did likewise, all of the others show that sail, and most of the others as well, as being much wider than it is tall. Those were the two primary features I was using to try to identify the ship. None of the reverse lettering/date seemed to match up to any of the ship token photos I viewed either. The lettering does not seem right for the type of wording typically found on U.S. tokens. In trying to guess what any of the actual words may have been, "DEFENCE" would be about as close a match to the upper row of shapes shown as I could think of. That was a common word on tokens of the early 1800's but typically found going around the rim, not in the center. Another possibility is that the letters could be part of a company name (ex:BUFFING CO.), followed by the owner's or a locational name. Sorry I could not be of more help. When I saw the shape of the sails, I knew they were distinctive features and I was fairly confident that I would be able to tell you what it was. If someone could check some non-U.S. refs, it may yet be found.
If I were to hazard a guess I would say its a Lower Canada colonial token. But more specifically a lightweight antedated token done by a dude who mix and matched dies. Oh and the reverse should be saying wellington waterloo. I thinks its listed in the Breton book as #1003.
cwtokenman, I can't believe that you went through that much trouble! Thank you. You seem to be a very knowledgeable and perceptive person. I'm very impressed. With people like you trying to solve this mystery, I am very hopeful that it will be solved! Skylark, I looked at the token that you suggested, the Wellington Waterloos, and the fronts are close, but the backs don't match. When you say antedated and mix and matched dies, what do you mean? Why would someone antedate a token or mix and match dies? That sounds interesting. I appreciate everyone taking the time to look this coin up and trying to help me solve my riddle. Thank you
