George III, Imitation Spade Guinea - Jetons (1768 & 1788)

[connorghabra]

Found two George III Imitation Spade Guinea Jetons while metal detecting Rehoboth Beach at night in Southern Delaware! One is slightly smaller and says 1768 and the other says 1788.

A few miles up the same coastline is a local beach we call "coin beach" due to a ship wrecking off the coast that held 400 barrels of King George half pennies and rose gold guineas (Faithful Steward shipwreck). I haven't found a coin yet from the shipwreck but it is quite a coincidence finding these imitation guineas a few miles down the same coast.

Rehoboth Beach is a tourist area and has been a resort town since the late 1800s, so not sure if these could have been dropped by a victorian tourist or if they were from a shipwreck that carried some jetons. Regardless of how they got there, I'm super excited about these because they are the oldest token/coin & only Jetons I have ever found. My girlfriend and I were jumping with joy!

 

[iAmMike]

Neat

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Great finds - congrats !

 

[Red-Coat]

Cool finds, but not as old as the dates would suggest. The last actual spade guineas were minted in 1799 and George III died in 1820, but these imitations with the legend “IN MEMORY OF THE GOOD OLD DAYS” were unlikely to have been produced before the 1870s and continued to be produced until at least the 1930s. The legend reflects a sentimental nostalgic look back to the pre-industrial period.

They were produced in Birmingham, with imitation guineas having the spurious dates of 1768 or 1797, and half-guineas spuriously dated 1768 or 1788. The diameters don’t always reflect the actual diameters of the coins on which they were based.

As well as being souvenir pocket pieces, often later holed for use as watch fobs, they were used as ‘stage money’, and were widely used in parlour card games. The music hall performer and male impersonator known as Vesta Tilley (Matilda Alice Powles), famously tossed such imitations from the stage to her audiences. She didn’t start performing in Britain until 1874 and retired in 1920, touring the vaudeville circuit in the USA six times.

 

[lenmac65]

Nice find. I have one of those Guineas in my collection that my brother traded to me as a kid. I loved it because it was my first “1700s coin” at the time, and I only recently learned it was a relatively modern token. Still cool though. Congrats!

 

[oldmxrat]

Those are some really fun finds, congrats!

 

[Relicific]

Cool finds

 

[CRUSADER]

Cool finds, but not as old as the dates would suggest. The last actual spade guineas were minted in 1799 and George III died in 1820, but these imitations with the legend “IN MEMORY OF THE GOOD OLD DAYS” were unlikely to have been produced before the 1870s and continued to be produced until at least the 1930s. The legend reflects a sentimental nostalgic look back to the pre-industrial period.

They were produced in Birmingham, with imitation guineas having the spurious dates of 1768 or 1797, and half-guineas spuriously dated 1768 or 1788. The diameters don’t always reflect the actual diameters of the coins on which they were based.

As well as being souvenir pocket pieces, often later holed for use as watch fobs, they were used as ‘stage money’, and were widely used in parlour card games. The music hall performer and male impersonator known as Vesta Tilley (Matilda Alice Powles), famously tossed such imitations from the stage to her audiences. She didn’t start performing in Britain until 1874 and retired in 1920, touring the vaudeville circuit in the USA six times.

Agreed, they are later & mostly used as gaming tokens/card games etc