UnderMiner
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- Jul 27, 2014
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Hit an old site today and found what I at first thought was a toasted Indian cent. Saw the date was 1863 and thought this made no sense as it was way too thin to be an 1863 cent and it appeared to be copper instead of bronze. Turned it over and there were two crossed cannons instead of the 'One Cent', that's when I knew I had something special!
My research indicates this coin is a patriotic civil war token from 1863. The word "Union" is clearly visible on one of the cannons. These tokens were apparently minted by private individuals during the war because real coins became very scarce due to hoarding and the Union and Confederacy both needing physical money to finance the war. Long story short the Union didn't like people making these tokens as they were technically not legal tender so on April 22nd 1864 Congress passed a law making the minting of war tokens illegal and then banned the private minting of all coins entirely on June 8th. This coin is 153 years old and was used during the Civil War by soldiers and civilians alike to help pay for necessities, though so much time has passed since then many artifacts still remain to remind us that it was not actually that long ago at all.
As it should look:
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