I found an interesting/rare token here in my home town while searching an old cellar hole. I've hunted this area a few time, finding 3 LCs and 3 Indian pennies. So when I first dug this token, I thought it was just another Indian penny until I got it home and started to clean it up. Then I started seeing the words "Maine Sate Bee Hive". After doing some research, Maine had very few Civil War Tokens, and 2 of them were by R C Torrey "Inventory of the Maine State Bee Hive". By living in Maine he apparently made some important changes to the then used bee hives to help them make it through harsh Maine winters. Torrey's token/store card was produced in 1863 and a different version 1864. The 1863 version I've found was rated R-6 meaning there's roughly 25-70 of them ever made. The one I found is a little hard to read right now so I've also attached images of what the token looked like when it was new. There's not a lot of information about this token, but in new condition it could be worth between $200-$400 because of it's rarity. Even though mine is pretty beat, I'm still very happy with it, being a Maine native and all.
Thanks for looking!
Thanks for looking!
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