frank

Awesome, just awesome.

A real handful today, literally. It astonishes me that people can use the machine and walk away when there is a pile of coins in the reject bin. It does help that the bin is low and not lit and black-lined.... --19 cents in Lincolns, no wheaties, several encrusted with something I hesitate to examine --20 cents in shiny new Roosevelt dimes--why were they rejected? --three Los Angeles bus fare tokens --four misc tokens: car wash, Normandie Arcade, Chuck-E Cheese (God I hate that place) and NO CASH VALUE --a 1999 British penny (my second in the past 2 months) and, best of all, --a 1950 West German 50 pfennig piece.

1755 silver jeton, French clergy

An astonishing 77 cents in one swipe (one Lincoln was stuck to a FDR dime with something I THINK is chocolate; I discovered this only after the coins had been in my pocket a few hours), plus two tokens, one saying NO CASH VALUE and the other from Mammoth Mountain, CA.

Where oh where can we find a 1756???

Didn't someone say they had a 1760?

Found today in the Coinstar reject bin: A bright 1994 British penny. I was sure it was Canadian at first (this is Southern California) and spent some time staring at the reverse design --please enlighten me; is the iron grill gate from the Tower?-- before I realized that Canada doesn't, um, have any " p " coins. And I thought I did the bin check very smoothly --the machine is near the entrance of the supermarket, and I just sort of looked as natural as I could and scooped it as I walked by. My conscience is clean.

1763 French jeton: Collège Louis le Grand (which still exists) COLLEGII FUNDATORES AUGUSTI Bustes accolés de Louis XIV et de Louis XV / MAIOR. E. CONFLUVIO UBERTAS - COLL. LUD. MAG. ACAD. EX. MUNIFICENTIA. LUDOVICI. DILECTISSIMI. M. D. CC. LXIII Un dieu fleuve tenant une corne d'abondance assis au milieu de sources sortant de rochers signed: Roettiers Fils. Cuivre rouge, F 4449

My next is a 1763.

Actually, Louis XV does look kind of funny in these portraits (besides looking like Richard Lewis). He looks a little puffy around the mouth... I wonder if he wore wooden dentures like Geo Washington, whose formal oil portraits by Stuart usually show the denture bulges...

1767 écu au bandeau du Béarn of Louis XV

1769 liard à la vieille tête of Louis XV

1779 liard of Louis XVI

1782 écu aux lauriers, holey and beat up, but it's a 1782!!!!

I am loving this thread. The quality of engraving on these medals is wonderful.

My local place here in Southern CA is run by a terrific guy who knows everything, pays fair, takes the time to explain things, and runs a great bid board. It's a great place to hang around. The owner clearly relishes dealing with smaller-money collectors and will sit with them quite a long time going over their Jeffersons and seeing what they might upgrade. There are some extremely high-spenders who come in, too, and they are treated like everyone else. This guy knows that what makes it worthwhile is not the money; it's the coins themselves. BTW, it's pretty much a guy place, and maybe an older guy place at that, although women and younger people do come in and are welcome. Soundtrack: 50's and 60's folk music.

Alas, this jetton is just too weird, it appears . . . I thought at one point that maybe it was some sort of a "denier pour épouser," but those (unless I'm mistaken) are usually in billon or silver, and they usually have the words "denier pour épouser" on them.

I've not been able to classify this undated jetton --Has anyone seen something like it? It looks to me like two separate French 16th-century love-emblems made into a jetton. Such emblems, often including paradoxes and plays on words, are common in early to mid-1500's French poetry, under Italian influence. They would often appear in woodcuts accompanying poems. The French text is a bit corrupted. The spelling changes make me think it may be a German copy of a French piece: "Je meurs pour vous toucher" ("I die from touching you") seems to be the right reading of one motto; the other seems to be "une seule [flèche] me blesse" ("one [arrow] only wounds me"). The misspellings aren't the way these phrases would normally appear in 16th-century French. Any guesses?

My collection of French coins and jetons starts from c. 1550. I should be able to fill in a number of dates in the 17th century --as soon as I get them all photographed! If Ian is watching this thread he could probably do most dates all by himself.

Something tells me we've entered the elverno zone... for the next 15 years or so! (I've been looking at your collection here and on Omnicoin; it's terrific.)

Those 8 reales are BEAUTIFUL. I drool.