I was hunting around on eBay for other stuff and noticed that some German seller had these going cheaply:

New acquisitions: 4 Civil War tokens and one Hard Times token (???)

I am fascinated by these things, but I have no idea what I have, or whether they are even genuine. They seem to be fairly inexpensive, and I'm sure it isn't possible to compare the quality of striking etc. with real coins issued back then. If they are counterfeits, I'd like to know ... it won't hurt too much, I guarantee! Although I find it hard to imagine why anyone would want to fake these things...

Are there any online references with pictures? Most just seem to refer to one of a couple of standard references. If I get serious about collecting these, I'll probably buy the books sooner or later -- but maybe not right now.

Thanks for looking!

hmm... i'm interested in hearing an answer too.

Here is a link to a site referencing the dix token. It is the token with the flag and on the reverse the "shoot him on the spot" quote.

Flag Obverse Civil War Token

For the Indian cent obverse, I couldn't find a specific listing, but it could very well be a "struck over" piece.

I found the hard times token on Ebay. It's called the Illustrious Predecessor. Here's the link for that.

Hard times, turtle and rabbit

The coin listed is an R-1 which is considered to be a unique coin, but it has the words executive experiment instead of executive financiering.

Sorry for all the ebay links, but they do offer some initial hunting help. I found the "Tradesmen's currency" on ebay as well. Here is the link to that.

Tradesmens Currency

It's listed as an R-1, but who knows if that's completely reliable.

Finally, the Wilson's Medal is also on Ebay, and looks to have a few die varieties, but there isn't much of an explanation.
Wilson's Medal

I hope that helps a bit. I hope it wasn't too confusing. I don't know much about these coins, but they are pretty cool and it was interesting reading about some of them.

Scott

Thanks very much, Scott!

I believe that R1 is actually the most common with R9 (or R10?) being rarest ... I saw that over at http://www.civilwartokens.com/. They also have pricing on some tokens, but no pictures...you have to own a reference in order to figure out which die pairings the coin has.

Good call, I read that wrong...

If you compare the reverse of my coin with that of the auction picture, you'll notice some significant details that are different or missing.

In addition to what everyone (?) sees the first time around, look at the relative position of the last "I" in "ILLUSTRIOUS" to the last "O" in "FOLLOW".

In the meantime, I found some pictures of the type "Illustrious Predecessor" with "Executive Financiering", and the design is a little different than the "Executive Experiment" variety (i.e., it' s just like my coin). Now it looks as if it is genuine.

Does anyone have any tips on grading these? I would give my coin a good VF or borderline XF, but the grades of the slabbed coins I have seen seem to be much too generous.

Also, what is the relative scarcity (R1, etc.) of this one?

From Rulau's United States Tokens 1700-1900

Illustrious Predecessor is HT 34 (or Low 20, the standard reference used by many collectors). I would grade these as if they were large cents or half cents from the period (I collect neither myself). In VF, $20, 50 in EF.

The Dix token comes in many varieties. I believe your flag is die 207: 25 stars in the flag (I don't have the patience to count them in the photo, would need to hold it and turn in the light), 6 bars in the flag. The second star down and the second star in from upper left ar recut. My guess on value $5 - $12

I believe your Not One Cent is obverse die 87 and reverse (the cent side) 357. Probably the same $5 to $12.

No help on Wilson's Medal, need more specialized literature.

The US copper is obverse 1215, no luck on the reverse (again need the specialized literature).