Civil War Token from the Reject Tray

[SusanMN]

A trip to the grocery store this afternoon turned my very boring and unlucky treasure hunting season around. As always, I stopped to check the store's coin counter reject tray. A measly two pennies were inside but I of course snatched them up. One was modern cent and the other seemed to be a foreign coin or token with an odd slogan on the back "Army & Navy" and the date 1863 on the front. I was hoping that it might be US but no markings to say that. But I was thrilled to find when I googled it that this was actually a US Civil War token and certainly worth more than a penny. These were minted privately to replace US coins which were hoarded and out of circulation during the war. Its in beautiful shape too, just a little bit of wear and sticky dirt on it.

 

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[CoilyGirl]

Banner find for sure and awesome story to go along with it.

 

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[Msbeepbeep]

Wow! Great score & save! Congrats!

Looks like somebody was cashing in grandma's coins and things.

 

[sutphin]

BOY THAT BEATS THEM DANG CHUCKY CHEESE TOKENS , COOL .

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Sweet find, congratulations!

 

[Driftwoood]

WHOA! Wow, that is awesome... and in great shape, too!

 

[Trezurehunter]

I am going to give you the award for "Best Coin Star Find" that I have ever seen pulled out of the tray. That is an awesome token.

 

[fishstick]

That is a GREAT score there Susan!!!!! CONGRATZ...

 

[wkrp43]

Wow, that's cool

 

[against the wind]

Thanks. Coin counting machines reject damaged coins and foreign coins, but they also reject US silver coins as well. Finding a silver Roosie is pretty common. But there has been at least one post that I am aware of here on Tnet of an individual finding a gold coin.

I did get a Silver Dollar.

 

[FriscoT06]

Wow.

 

[SusanMN]

Thank you everyone for all the comments and "likes". One of my favorite things about finding something old is being able to research and learn more about it and its history, and this token has been a tremendous learning opportunity. I found a great resource - cwtoken.com that helped provide more info about my token. Mine is a somewhat rare AN6 Leichtweis's Army & Navy Die 16/301.

I also learned that between 1862 and 1864 (when private minting was outlawed), about 25,000,000 tokens were privately minted in about 7000 varieties, which included merchant store tokens. I mention this because if you have found a store token, as most of us have, cwtoken.com has pics of those that were civil war mints in their "store card" section. You just never know what you might already have.

And yes, finding a 153 year old penny in a reject bin is insanely lucky. Not all my treasure hunting is this lucky. This was my tenth year detecting, and I have yet to find a single silver quarter.

 

[UNC_]

nice find congrats

 

[scruggs]

People will put all kinds of goodies in the old coin jar...great eye and a very good find!

 

[BigWaveDave]

Big Congrats Susan!.....lucky you!
Just imagine if someone else found it....
No way they could appreciate it as much as you, and all of us here on Tnet!
Again, well done!

 

[dansalata]

AMAZING FIND.I ONCE HAD ONE OF THOSE TILL A SCUM RIPPED OFF ALL MY CW STUFF AND MORE...GREAT PIECE OF AMERICAN HISTORY!!! CONGRATS TO YOU!!

 

[A2coins]

Great find Thanks for posting it!!! I found one silver dime!!!