NUMISMATIC TERMS 上市 Deposited
MEDAL, TOKEN, JETON
The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 31, July 30 , 2000, Article 6
NUMISMATIC TERMS: MEDAL, TOKEN, JETON
Our topic of numismatic terms has generated quite a bit
of interest.Serge Pelletier writes: "Doug forwarded your e-mail because he
knows I am working on a "Canadian Dictionary of Numismatics"
and that the question from Bob Knepper would definitely interest
me. Here is the light I can shed on the subject:MEDAL: CoinNews (UK) define the term in their 2000
Yearbook as "A piece of metal bearing devices or given as
an award. Military medals date generally from the 16th and
17th centuries, but were not generally awarded to all ranks
until the 19th century. Commemorative medals can trace their
origin back to Roman times, but in their present form they date
from the Italian Renaissance when there was a fashion for
large-diameter cast portrait medals." They further state that a
"medalet" is a small medal of 25mm or less and a "medallion"
is a large medal of 50mm or more. I must add some caveats
in that "Military medals" are commonly referred to in North
America as "decorations" to avoid confusion. Furthermore,
even though "medal" is the more generic term, the tendancy in
North America is to use "medallion" as the generic with "medal"
being the larger size one.JETON: CoinNews "Alternative term for "counter", and used
originally on the chequerboard employed by medieval
accountants. Nuremberg was the most important centre for
the production of medieval jetons, often issued in lengthy
portrait series. Carlton in his "International Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of Numismatics" simply states that it is the French
translation of "token". Carlton is quite right to say so,
particularly in North America. However, Gallléazzi in his
"Lexique numismatique" clarifies that for the French there are
three types of jetons: jetons de compte (usually refered to as
jetons or counters in English), jetons de circonstance ou à
thème (would more appropriately be translated as a medal)
and jetons-valeurs (appropriately translated tokens).TOKEN: CoinNews "Any piece of money whose nominal
value is greater than its intrinsic value is, strictly speaking, atoken or promise. Thus most of the coins issued since 1964
can be regarded in this light, but numismatist reserve the term
for a piece of limited validity and circulation, produced by
tradesmen, chambers of commerce and other organisations
during times of a shortage of government coinage. (...) Tokens
with a nominal value may be produced for security reasons to
lessen the possibility of theft from milk bottles, vending
machines, telephones, parking meters...My simplified and simplistic approach to it is as follows: I only
use "jeton" in English to describe medieval counters; any piece
with a denomination or a "good for" value on it is a "token", and
everything else that is not a coin is a "medal"!So, I hope this will help Mr. Knepper. I don't know what he
collects but he should definitely consider Municipal Trade Tokens
for his thematic collection."Bill Malkmus writes: "In the microtrivia category: You may have
gotten other responses, but will comment since I just happened
to be reading a Spanish paper about a countermark on a jeton.
The (Spanish) author distinguishes between the two terms as in
your comment, and uses "contramarca" for countermark as you
defined, but uses "resello" for your definition of "counterstamp."
The paper I'm referring to was published by Juan Jose Moreno y
Casanova, "Contramarca privada sobre un jeton frances,"
Gaceta numismatica 126, 49-56 (1997). (I'm not touching the
"jeton" part of the definitions!}"Robert A. Levinson writes: "I will take a stab at the differences
between medals, tokens and jetons. Medals are items which
commemorate things, events and people. Tokens are items
used for exchange or goods. Jetons are counting tokens used
originally to calculate mathematics and later, with the advent of
modern math spreading throughout Europe by the early 1600s,
found other purposes as presentation pieces, propaganda
devices and small medals."Jørgen Sømod writes: "A jeton is a little medal. A token can be
used for some kind of payment. An advertising piece is a jeton
and a communion token is still a token, even the admission is free."- 2000-07-30
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