Left field indian, aint quite right....

[rc2125]

Left field indian, ain't quite right....

Noticed a fresh dug out spot in town this afternoon, couldn't resist hittin it after work for a few minutes. Pulled a couple lincoln pennies, and what I hoped might be an indian....

Sure enough, 1800's a la americana today

date is sorta hard to make out, but I'm fairly sure it is 1868 (via 20x magnifier)

Here is whats-it part..... it doesn't seem to be like any indian pennies I can find pictures of. The wreath seems alot thinner with pointy seperate leaves ,it doesn't say "one cent" and there seems to be no shield up top either......?

The letters that are easy to see, are raised and they read: "m e a s ? ? u" above "p l e a s " , there are also three ,sorta distinct, but small, raised iron crosses with > < on each side of them, one above the s in meas and another below pleas. There seems to be more raised letters above, but they are worn quite a bit.

Cleaned up a little:

See additional word was up top, started with a v? V ? ? ? E me. as. you. pleas(e) ?


**solved a bit of the mystery....

looks like it is "value me as you pleas" , googled "me as you pleas coin" and found these references.... interesting

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1136&Lot_No=2389
http://heritageauctions.blogspot.com/2009/12/coin-monday-value-me-as-you-please.html

*** solved in the what's it thread....
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,392811.0.html

 

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[diggin jimmy hoffa]

Re: Left field indian, ain't quite right....

What an awesome find Rye

When you first posted this yesterday, I kept trying to figure why the middle word was Measure, now I see it is Me As.

Looks like they're diggin a lot of ground up in town.

Keep your eyes peeled and good hunting
DJH

 

[jgas]

Re: Left field indian, ain't quite right....

Sure enough an 1863 Patriotic Token. I used to have the entire list of tokens but I lost the PDF file. Store card as they may have been called. I found a cut one in Mishawaka once. Too bad it was cut, it would have been one of 75 known. Yours is quite nice as you may or may not know back then when the war was raging. Stores were making their own coins because there was a lack of copper coinage. So they were good to spend as you please on goods/ services. Really a cool find. Congrats. jgas