Truly rare and amazing CRH find

[Twitch]

Found something in a nickel roll today I never thought I'd find. I saw it sitting there and it took me a double take to figure our what was going on. To be honest, it wasn't until I flipped it over that it made complete sense what I was looking at, an 1883 V Nickel carved into a love today on the reverse. Looks to be an 'L'. This came out of a CWR. As CRH'ers when we generally talk about Barber's and '70-D's as rare, and they are, but most of us have found a number of both. Never thought I'd find a love token.....

Also found 6 40%ers, a '64-D Quarter, 2 '64-D dimes, a '43-P nickel that is in outstanding condition, 5 wheats (oldest 1916) and a 2020 Rockefeller W quarter.

Also found a 1 nickel and 1 dime MWR roll each from 1974-1975. They're crazy old and all the early 70's / late 60's coins are BU. Very cool to find.

 

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[BigWaveDave]

Congrats on the love Nickel!
Wish I could see it better....

 

[Twitch]

Maybe these are better.

 

[BigWaveDave]

Awesome!
I’d be a player on that for $40-$50 bucks.... love exonumia like that.

 

[Dozer D]

Maybe back in 1883 some guy was madly in love with a girl and he carefully carved it on the rev., nice workmanship by the way. Maybe it has some linkup with 1883 date, to an anniversary etc.

 

[Megalodon]

That's a very nice find - and rare, IMO, in a roll.

And I like the "as found" appearance much better than a cleaned pic.

 

[FormerTeller]

Incredibly rare CRH find! I collect love tokens extensively. The lettering is either “IL” or “JL” - the I’s and J’s are pretty hard to tell apart, at least for me on mobile without my glasses. You can tell it’s two separate letters by the engraving style of each. Though there are no hard and fast rules, often the taller letter is the first initial, and the wider letter is the last initial.

The fact that it is an 1883 increases the value somewhat, as it’s the first year of the V nickel, but in general nickels don’t command as high a value as silver coins.

Incidentally, I would say love token collectors are split as to whether to leave the love token in its natural state, or to clean it up. In this case, I would probably clean it as it doesn’t look that attractive currently. Cleaned or not, I would guesstimate you could sell it to a collector for between $20 and $40.