Hard Times tokens for 2009
Ned
Ah, what we all could use are some jingling hi-jinks to
roll out this year of 2009 and wipe those dour expressions
off our faces full of grump. What do you say?
Any old-time local metals designers with a sense of whimsy
interested in creating modern-day Hard Times tokens
(examples at eBay: http://atu.ca/HardTimes ), in the style
of famous predecessors? Any metals producers willing to
stamp them?...
President Andrew Jackson in 1832 launched a one-man coup on
the semi-private Bank of the United States, rescinding its
charter because he did not like so much power being vested
in one institution, and scooping up Treasury money to
parcel out to local banks.
BUS went under, credit collapsed. The country was actually
flush at the time, say historians (that didn't last; paper
money flourished, un-backed by sufficient gold and silver,
leading to inflation and depression), but Jackson's antic
caused hoarding of standard-issue coinage known then as
specie.
Hard Times copper tokens, unofficial, often satirical
currency about the size of today's one-cent piece and
inscribed with merchant advertising and political motifs,
were subsequently struck and issued by East Coast metals
merchants as an antidote to the shortage...
This new year is, as you know, forecast to be difficult.
Some merchants not only lost sales this season, but may
lose their shirts. We consumers have our own misgivings
about banks and credit - even without Old Hickory Jackson
to muck around with things.
But pessimism and foul moods are poor traveling companions.
A tongue-in-cheek 2009 Hard Times token...would make some
of us feel merrier, sillier, richer. Sell the tokens to
benefit the library, literacy programs or zoo.
Any takers?
Mr. Jaggers
Ned, this is a fascinating topic. If I thought for a moment that you'd
actually participate in a conversational exchange, I'd engage. But I don't,
so I won't.
James
Edwin Johnston
Daniel Carr has issued his own 2008 HTT in 39mmm copper. Stay tuned for
something slightly different for 2009.
Mr. Jaggers
They just don't quite have the embattled look of the old originals, do they?
James
Edwin Johnston
It's really more of a postmodern exercise than anything else -- a
novelty item that shows off Carr's technique of three-dimensional
digital sculpting that gets minted on his US Mint surplus Grabener coin
press.
Nice conversational piece, fits the times.