United States: 1863 bronze patriotic Civil War token, "Our Little Monitor" type

United States: 1863 bronze patriotic Civil War token, "Our Little Monitor" type

PCGS MS63 BN. Cert. #44769724.

Fuld-237/423a.

Ex-"charlelibb1", eBay, 20 February 2022. Purchased raw.

Quoting the NGC Coin Explorer page for the type:

"Patriotic Civil War Tokens were struck by private die sinkers and merchants in order to make up for the lack of circulating coinage during the war. These tokens were mostly issued in the Northeast and Midwest, and often feature pro-Union themes or slogans. This particular variety was struck in 1863 and has been designated F-237/423a by the declarative reference on this subject, Patriotic Civil War Tokens by George and Melvin Fuld. As designated by the "a" at the end of the Fuld number, this variety is struck in copper."

I think every collection of United States coins should include at least one Civil War token. This happens to be my favorite type. It portrays a USS Monitor-class warship of the era. I was interested in the Civil War ironclads as a child, and built at least one model kit of the Monitor. I previously owned an NGC MS65 BN example of this type. Though this current example is graded two points lower than the previous piece, I like it more. Despite the BN (Brown) designation, it has a lot of Red to it, and some nice pinkish toning.



031500