frank

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.