✅ SOLVED Pewter Medallion / Coin?

paleomaxx · Mar 28, 2018

I dug this up today at a site that's produced late 1700's to late 1800's finds. Once I rinsed it off I noticed that there were the remains of lettering around the edges and one side had the faint outline of a wreath. My first guess is a counterfeit coin of some sort, but they holed it as well so a medallion is another possibility.

The ground was pretty rough to is, but I tried to get a few close-ups of letters and the wreath. There isn't much left though.

I'm really hoping someone recognizes this, because I'm at a loss so far. Definitely the coolest find from the site so an ID would be amazing. Thanks all!

VERMONTIS · Mar 28, 2018

grasshopper · Mar 30, 2018

Yikes...that's a tough one.

I definitely see a wreath and some of the letters that you're seeing but can't make anything out.

Hopefully someone recognizes it and you can get an ID. Cool find!!

You might want to open your pictures in an image viewing program and mess around with the color levels (hue, saturation, etc)...sometimes it can make the letters pop a bit more.

sutphin · Mar 30, 2018

NEET FIND

paleomaxx · Feb 16, 2019

Well I finally got an ID on this. After letting it dry I did some careful work with an Andre's brush and was able to tease out "Empereur" on one side of the obverse. The French spelling lead me to early French coins and based on the size and the few details left I've now determined that it's a pewter counterfeit of a French 5 Francs coin minted between 1809-1814. There isn't much left of the bust, but it would have depicted Emperor Napoleon which is cool! The original coin would have been silver and roughly equivalent to a silver dollar so this was quite the counterfeit. Here's what a real one looked like:

It was holed and that might have been when they discovered it was a fake and tossed it. I wish the ground had been kinder to it, but there was enough for an ID so that's all that counts!