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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;krispy, post: 697058, member: 19065&quot;]This could be a hobo/carved piece especially if made from an old silver coin but the words (devices) on the reverse top edge of your piece, seem to say &quot;American Indian&quot; and that seems to be part of the original design of some token and not a old silver denomination coin. Perhaps this was a silver art round as mentioned earlier or a silver (souvenir) token. A craft person may have simply altered the coin/token for jewelry purposes by trimming out the design to leave the negative space. I&#039;ve seen people at craft shows selling quarters with the same idea, portrait trimmed out leaving the outer rim of the coin, affixing a loop and chain to create a necklace. </p><p><br /></p><p>The portrait on your piece might turn out to be a stylized figure and not a particular identifiable Chief. However, the portrait looks a lot like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud" rel="nofollow">Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Chief Red Cloud</a> in full headdress and regalia, especially since he&#039;s wearing that disc-like medal that&#039;s <u>very</u> similar to the one which appears in a well known portrait of the Chief at the above link. </p><p><br /></p><p>There are very few photographic portraits of Red Cloud and other Chiefs in their natural environs, and it is important to understand that many period portraits by the time these were taken, or coerced, bribed, etc. were heavily staged at the photographers request of the defeated, captured or imprisoned leaders to wear their traditional garments and regalia. For example the Apache leader Geronimo who was a prisoner of the Indian wars by the United States was &#039;allowed&#039; to attend the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis to sign autographs and carve arrow tips. The infamous Geronimo was a part of the exhibition of world cultures along with many other indigenous peoples, such as Ainu from Japan, native peoples of the Philippines, Inuit and African Pygmies who were all brought in from across the world. </p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.curtis-collection.com/curtis/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.curtis-collection.com/curtis/" rel="nofollow">Edward Curtis </a>was a &#039;frontier&#039; photographer but particularly focused on staged photos of Native Americans. His photos are very powerful images but you have to view them knowing that the people in them were urged to act or dress according to the photographers wishes. </p><p><br /></p><p>Just thought some folks might like to know a little background or be interested in this aspect of Native American portraits and stylization that went on, and went onto coins in some cases.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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