Jump to content
CoinPeople.com

Shot the buffalo & gold plated lover boy!


Recommended Posts

Here are a couple of the odd balls I picked up @ the LCS today. Being a token collector I tend to buy what strikes my fancy of the odd ball etc.
Token028-horz.jpg
Called shot the buffalo, 1917 appears to be a .22 slug. It appealed to me since I have read most of the old circus and wild west shows books about the trick shot actors. Meet a few of the modern era ones. They would shoot a bunch of them and sell them after the performance. Probably a faux one but @ the price $2.00 I couldn't pass it up for the sideshow collection.
Token033-horz.jpg
One of them gold plated ones again being in the junque bin box/½ off couldn't pass it up for a buck. Might end up as a pocket piece.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My father actually owns a flying eagle cent with an indentation in it that looks like it is from a bullet leaves you wondering what the heck happened to that thing

Like all things, people that were with Circuses, and the wild west shows and the stage trick shot shows in the day. Always looking for away to add to the income with out a lot of work. The working men, or the kids with the shows would sell coins that were shot some were holed or most were dimpled like the above one.

The disclaimer was they may be from the show or from practice. That explained why they always had a surplus of coins for sale! The deal was the coins were placed on the ground and then shot. Since most of the guns used were smaller caliber to save on costs. The dimple is generally on the small side.

When they were shooting the thrown glass balls, they used special shotgun shells in the rifles and handguns so they could hit the balls and destroy more than they missed. Today they still have the same style shell they are called rat shot shells. The other benefit they would do little damage either to people in the area or the insides of the theaters. Free passes today are still called Annie Oakley's because of the hole in the center of some of them. Story goes she would shoot a number of them and that would be the only passes they could give out.

As with the famous phrase not worth a "plugged nickle". Contrary to the movies dollars were not shot willy-nilly as the were to hard to come by. Large cents and to show how good they were a nickle was used.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...