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nautilator's Last 20 Posts

Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/22/2024  9:37 pm


Got this today. It's a tin 11-cent piece issued in Malaysia in the mid-1700s. The rooster had a defined value of 5 cents while each ring had a value of 1 cent.

The reason for this unusual design was it was meant to be cut up to make change. And cut they were. Original, uncut pieces are extremely rare and difficult to find. If you're wondering, this is about 4 inches long and weighs a little more than an ounce.




This is a token that was issued by the British Sub Aqua Club in Jamaica. Though it does not display a denomination, it had a value of 5 shillings. It was issued because collecting money for bottles of air was difficult. Because of the cost of ordering tokens was high, the club made their own -- out of brass washers.




I do not have this in hand yet but I will soon. This is a gold Spanish 4 escudos from the 1700s -- except it's actually a contemporary counterfeit. It was made with a trash metal called platinum. At the time, platinum had no known uses and was the only metal readily available that could match the density of gold. Contemporary platinum counterfeits are scarce but come up for sale reasonably often. This is one of the few instances where I think a counterfeit fits well with material collecting.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/02/2024  12:21 pm
Nice pickup. Here's to you getting the rest.

By the way, in case it isn't known, the two crossed swords are the symbol of meissen porcelain specifically.
Forum: "Post Your..." Gallery Topics
 
Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 08/29/2024  8:38 pm
Oh, that was you? Congrats, lol.
Forum: "Post Your..." Gallery Topics

Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 06/14/2024  10:37 am

Souvenir token issued for use in Gaylord, Michigan in 1965. It is made of novoply, a type of particleboard, and is quite thick.



This is a medal that was awarded to someone for winning a foot race in Tahiti in 2018. It is made with a slice of abalone shell. The colors look much nicer in person than I could get on camera. And yes, it did come on a ribbon.



This is a plastic token redeemable for yogurt at Yogurtland. I don't know much about different types of plastics but this one is made with the same type that they make their plastic spoons with and is biodegradable.



We've mentioned the Leiden paper coins of 1574 before but these are rarely seen together. The 'common' ones are the 5 stuiver on the left. All other denominations, including the 20 stuiver on the right, are considerably rarer.

Note that some coins are counterstamped while others aren't; the 5 stuiver on the top has a counterstamp while the one on the bottom does not.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 05/25/2024  10:45 am
Fiber tokens were especially common during WWII due to conservation of metal for war purposes.

What they did, I think, was dissolve paper in zinc chloride solution to create layers of paper atop each other. You can see that along the edge of any true fiber token.

(I say true fiber token because things like the Manchuoku 'fiber' tokens do not have this layering and are not actually fiber.)
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 05/11/2024  10:20 pm
It will probably just come out black. Come to think of it, I do know someone who p4ides himself on his coin photography, I might ask him about it.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 05/11/2024  9:03 pm
Some new acquisitions.



It's hard to read because you see both sides of this glass token simultaneously. It was made for use by a glass factory in Czechia in 1849 and has a face value of 6 kreuzer. The picture can't do this one any justice, it's absolutely dazzling in person.




One of a group of marathon medals I found recently, that is made of slate mined in Honnister, England.




A Mexican baptism token made out of a Mexican 1 peso coin.




A scarce instance of a clay-based poker chip being used as a trade token rather than a gambling chip. Like so many of these sorts of things, this one is attributable to Montana.




Another drink token on a slice of antler. This is the first one I know of from Idaho, rather than Wyoming.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 04/04/2024  10:32 am
A lot of fiber tokens date to the WWII era. Conservation of metal and all.
Forum: "Post Your..." Gallery Topics
 
Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 03/29/2024  9:39 pm



This is one of my favorite acquisitions. The number of Hood River rubber dollars that are still out there are very few. This might be an original (as opposed to a reprint) but either way, it is still soft as when first issued. That's very rare for a 90-year-old piece of tire rubber -- another one I have is crystallized and brittle.





Another Argentinian 1910 medal. It is made of carob (algarrobo) wood.

These used to not be on the site with all the Argentina medals, but they are now, and four are listed so this might be the last one.

Of course, there's always another stone to be overturned as the medals site shows one of these.




This medal shows Adolfo Carranza, founder of Argentina's National Historical Museum and is made of Quebracho wood. Quebracho is one of the hardest woods that there is.




This unassuming token was issued in New Point Indiana and is made with masonite (particle board).
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Republic Year 23, Chinese "Junk Dollar". Is It Authentic Or Fake?
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 03/28/2024  11:29 pm
So, I know I'm a bit late here but I just came across the thread. The coin appears to be a cast counterfeit. The most important place to look would be the high points of the coin, which are unusually mashed up.

Here's a comparative picture



Notice the mashed up details between the center rigging lines in particular. The left picture comes from the NGC article about this sort of counterfeit, seen at https://www.ngccoin.com/resources/c...p/chinese/1/
Forum: World Coins and Commemoratives
 
Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 03/22/2024  09:34 am
That token looks pretty well-struck. For some of those, the lines across the shield don't really come out visibly.

Coin club and related tokens tend to be thoroughly shunned by most people, which I think is a shame. There are a number of nice club tokens that have been made over the years and at least one material (balsa wood) where I think can only be found with coin club tokens.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 12/24/2023  7:44 pm
Now speaking of "shell cards"... these are chocolate coins from the NY World Fair of 1939.






Lineup of Litson Gove, KS leather tokens.




Lineup of Gaia, Spain porcelain tokens. There are several varieties of these and they are fairly easy to find.



Wah Chang zirconium samples, anodized in four different colors.



Canadian municipal trade tokens were often each issued in a variety of metals. These here are all made of lead, the kind that's soft enough to bend with your hands. All lead issues are quite rare, with the 'common' ones having mintages of 50.

And if you would believe it, the one in the middle of this picture is prooflike! I can only show it so much in the picture, here's a closer look to try and get it a bit better.

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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 12/24/2023  7:37 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aux_Belles_Poules

"The ladies standing for the dance..."
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 12/24/2023  7:29 pm

Quote:
I picked up my first of this composition very recently, and it's possibly also from a French brothel.

The one above you, the Aux Belles Poules, is one of the most common legitimate brothel tokens you can get, and they are often very cheap. There's a very colorful story that goes with that particular brothel, I won't post it here but it's easy to find.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/27/2023  08:30 am
Thailand has some really interesting and unusual ingot-based money. Other 'classics' include tin-hat money and a tin rooster atop a string of six rings. In that particular one, the rooster had a defined value of 5 cents and each ring had a defined value of 1 cent, and the idea was you could cut the rings off to make change.
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/26/2023  1:42 pm
So, I got this yesterday.

It's a bone gambling token, which are pretty common, but this one was used in the Dexter Saloon in Nome, Alaska aka the one that Wyatt Earp founded.

Also have a number of other things I realized I haven't pictured yet.


Akita Japan 100 mon coins from 1862. These are the first coins I've come across that are copper-plated lead. Of course, Samuel H Black made advertising tokens to that effect, as things that are called electrotypes all are.



While it's kind of arguable if this Store K bottle might be considered a trade token, it does say 'good for 5 cents' on it, and similar things (like the clay jug from Alabama) are.



While I've noted Tenino's colorful cedar wood depression scrip before, the 50c one is new for me. 50c and $1 denominations are much scarcer than 25c ones, and cedar wood scrip is much scarcer than spruce wood ones. The 50c has a low serial number to boot.



We mentioned Rwanda's Noble 7 early on but this is from the Noble 5. They had different designs each year. This one is the world's first iridium coin and weighs in at a whopping 1/25th of an ounce. That actually makes it pretty valuable considering the price of iridium.



One more -- silver is not a rare material but I do like the distinctive silver coins. These are Thai tiger tongue moneys (c. 90-100g size, large) and silver tamlung coins (c. 10-20 g size, small).
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Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/25/2023  09:55 am
It's always nice to see someone thinking about such things. I started off by looking at cardboard, fiber, and plastic tokens because they're easy introductory materials that you can't really go wrong with.
Forum: "Post Your..." Gallery Topics
 
Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/23/2023  4:23 pm




Ginzkey owned a carpet factory and used these notgeld in 1917 as money. They come in denominations of 5, 10, 25, and 50. This is one of the very few tokens I've ever seen made solely from glass.





Medal issued 1950 commemorating the 100th death anniversary of Juan Martin de Pueyrredon. The body of this medal is nacre, the trimmings are brass, and the image of him is on a paper insert.




Kale Koppen Kamp was a Japanese WWII prison camp in Java, where they used these uniface tokens made out of bamboo. There is at least one more that is good for a cup of coffee.




Some Thai tin coins: a 1/8 and 1/16 fuang from 1862, and one of the large flower moneys.





Belgium 50c coin issued as WWI money in 1915. This series is currently the only one I know of that's made with brass-plated iron, though it's highly likely there are others.
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Official "Post A Counterstamp" Thread....
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 11/23/2023  09:22 am

Forum: "Post Your..." Gallery Topics
 
Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!
nautilator
Valued Member
United States
324 Posts
Old Post Posted 08/16/2023  9:34 pm
I think this is where I left off.



The Border Scouts were a militia group situated in Upington, South Africa during the Boer Wars. After going on for months without pay and there being no paper in the area, someone got the bright idea of cutting up surplus military uniforms and reissuing them as money. There are a few varieties of this issuance of money and all are rare.




This is the first German shooting medal I've seen made of leather. A local dealer found this one for me.




Those Argentinian independence medals that come in curupay and mora wood were also made of urunday.




Pocket barometers had a paper strip that changed color according to the weather. Most were made with vulcanized rubber. This one dates to the 1880s and yes, they are listed as tokens in the Schenkman Hard Rubber Tokens book. There are apparently far more of them out there than were listed there, though.




Certain guitar picks that were (and are) being given out by bands on tour also double as drink tokens. This one is from this year.




These austere tokens were issued by John Krosby of Norway as householder money in the 1830s. This particular one had a value of 6 skilling.




This is presumably a pilgrim's badge as it was discovered near the Pilgrim's Way in England. It is carved out of slate.




I was happy when I found this, only to realize that it's apparently the second medal that this company made of milk (or casein -- milk protein). If anybody finds the other, let me know.




Stickers on coins are common. Stickered coins where the sticker is a good-for are scarce.




This so-called dollar celebrates Joseph Wharton, who lobbied the US to make coins out of nickel, then founded the Wharton School of Business, and then founded INCO when the nickel ran out in Gap, PA. It is, of course, made with pure nickel.
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