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- From johnmenc@optonline.net Mon Jun 14 10:16:53 2004
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Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:16:23 -0000
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From: johnmenc@optonline.net
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Subject: Wood 29 Background
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Here is the background information form the Notre Dame site:
Next is a group of nine tokens connected to the diemakers Daniel and
Benjamin True of Troy, New York. These include BL 40 - BL 48 (Wood
23-30), of which Wood did not know of BL 46. The tokens are linked
through the sharing of two dies originally used to produce Hard
Times storecard tokens in Troy, New York. The dies were the obverse
of the J. and C. Peck Company token (HT 363) and the reverse of the
N. Starbuck and Son Company token (HT 368); both tokens are known to
have been made by the diemaker Benjamin True of Troy, most probably
in 1835. John Lorenzo has recently studied the group and noticed the
Blacksmiths made with these two dies show the dies is a worn late
state of use. Further, Lorenzo observed the mules made with these
dies are on light planchets that were crudely cut. These are very
similar to the planchets used for the Blacksmiths but quite unlike
the planchets used by the True's in their normal minting operation
in Troy. Based on these observations Lorenzo suggested the two dies
in question may have been shipped from Troy, New York to Canada
after they had been used for the storecards. Interestingly, in his
1910 article Wood had suspected these dies had been discarded and
sent to Canada. This suggestion had also been made by Oppenheim in
an entry for a specimen of a Wood 25 Blacksmith in his masterful
catalog of the Warren Baker Collection (p. 109, entry 1063).
Nevertheless, many numismatists of the Hard Times token series have
regularly attributed these coins to that series. As recently as 1997
they were listed in the second edition of Russell Rulau, Standard
Catalog of United States Tokenson pp. 133-134 as HT 364, 365, 369,
370 and 371). It now appears these coppers were not Hard Times
tokens at all but Blacksmiths, and were most probably made at a
location that produced other Blacksmith coppers rather than at the
token mint owned by the True family in Troy, New York.
Interestingly, the Charlton Catalogue includes BL 38 (Wood 30) in
this group. This coin is an unusual piece with an eagle on each
side. Although the eagles are similar to eagles found on Wood 26 and
28, that is, BL 43 and BL 45, Oppenheim has observed the two eagles
on Wood 30 slightly differ from each other and they both differ in
details from the eagle on the other two tokens. Wood did not include
this item in the tokens associated with the dies by Benjamin True.
JPL update: If you are still updating this Mr. Jordan I really see
no changes here with the appearance of these three new HTT-
Blacksmiths (2-Wood 29-b's and 1-Wood 29-c). In my mind it seems to
support the "discarded die" theory. The fact that these HTT-
Blacksmiths were struck uncollared is testament to this supposition.
Interesting also Mr. Jordan is the die states on these HTT-
Blacksmith flans being very early as opposed to "ALL THE OTHER" Wood-
23 mules.
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