WHY? *Tokens* vs. United states

I recently acquired this United States, Hard Times Token.



I spent several hours researching this piece and HTT's in general. A wonderful and well documented journey through an interesting and short time in the United States history. (search "tontine" for something new)

When it's time to enter it into my collection on Numista, I find it is in the *Token* (garbage pail) section of our catalogue. WHY?

Surely there are some HTT collectors out there (and while I'm thinking of it, some Civil War Token collectors) that are excluded from Numista for this reason. Think about it.....my token is grouped with this entry

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces140990.html

(do you think they have the Obverse and Reverse mixed up ).

We group Condors, Notgelds, and Colonials under their respective countries. Why not these?

Reasonable explanations are welcome.

A lot of it comes down the the choices made by referees of the various sections based on considerations of history, catalog conventions, standing traditions, etc. It's important, I think, to recall that the catalog was not born fully formed, but is the result of many years of user (human) contributions. Inconsistencies and even outright errors are to be expected. Plus, tokens are currently a bit of an awkward fit in the catalog (whether included in the country sections or relegated to the "token" heap). I think it's fair to say that up to this point, the inclusion of tokens has been a secondary concern to "official" coins. Whether this is a positive or a negative depends entirely on who you ask and what they collect. Some might argue that the lack of a stock certificate or credit card section is excluding potential users, too. Others might say that we should drop anything that isn't a government-issued metal disk with at least nominal status as legal tender.

The most relevant bit of information, however, might be that Xavier has said that an overhaul of Tokens and Exonumia sections is in the works for this year ( https://en.numista.com/forum/topic105467.html ). If that comes together, hopefully much more usable and consistent catalogs for both coins, tokens, and "other" will be the result.

And that is a very good looking token you've got there, by the way.

Sorry, My computer is acting up so I cant copy and paste the Numista page for this token at the moment but if you go to U.S. hard times tokens it is there on page 1594, 2nd from the last entry on the page. HT#294 - Year 1837. Hope that helps. If I may add to the comment above, the fact that there is no denomination or date on the token complicates matters.

Got it.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/tokens-1594.html
-Harry

Well, it even has "token" in the name. Might give you a hint.

This should be in the U.S. coin section, as it circulated as a coin during a coin shortage.

The side depicting the building is the obverse.

Aidan.

I think at least part of it has to do with who the issuer is. If the gov't issues a coin then it should be under the country and if it is privately issued then it should be a token section addition. FWIW, i dont think it being in the token section is stigmatizing...it should be in a section dedicated to such tokens and not with car wash tokens since they are two different things but personally as referee for the US i would not have this under the US section base don my understanding of how we would organize the catalog.

Quote: "cncote10"​I think at least part of it has to do with who the issuer is. If the gov't issues a coin then it should be under the country and if it is privately issued then it should be a token section addition. FWIW, i dont think it being in the token section is stigmatizing...it should be in a section dedicated to such tokens and not with car wash tokens since they are two different things but personally as referee for the US i would not have this under the US section base don my understanding of how we would organize the catalog.

​Exactly this. If the US coin section were to expand on the basis of items used as currency (even just items in "widespread" use) we'd get into to trouble pretty quick. How would we catalog gold dust? Or wampum? Or beaver pelts?

Better to have excellent token and exonumia sections.

Perhaps they could be added as a separate issuer like German or French notgeld

Quote: "Some_Nerd"​Perhaps they could be added as a separate issuer like German or French notgeld

​
Great idea - classed by state, then city.

Of course, the American Civil War 1 Cent currency tokens warrant a separate subsection separated from the older currency tokens.

The ones issued by issuers in the Confederate States of America would need to be in a separate listing.

Aidan.

It will take time but ideally the Tokens Section should only include Tokens that were used for Payment, Service or also for counting (As the way the original Token was used for "Counter Token").
Tokens as it is now is still a huge mess as there are countless pieces that cannot be used for Payment/Service/Counting.

All other pieces which currently reside in Tokens should be moved to Exonumia. Tourist/Souvenir pieces for example have no special usage except for being purchased as a collectors or souvenir piece so these also will move to Exonumia.

Quote: "apuking"​It will take time but ideally the Tokens Section should only include Tokens that were used for Payment, Service or also for counting (As the way the original Token was used for "Counter Token").
​Tokens as it is now is still a huge mess as there are countless pieces that cannot be used for Payment/Service/Counting.
​
​All other pieces which currently reside in Tokens should be moved to Exonumia. Tourist/Souvenir pieces for example have no special usage except for being purchased as a collectors or souvenir piece so these also will move to Exonumia.

​+100

I would actually like to go a step further and actually delete listings that doesn't fit in. There are a lot of junk we could just delete all together.

We should not be too quick with deleting.
The last time something like that happened "Tokengate" it ended up with quite some rage, anger and fury.
Sure a washer has nothing with value to be here on numista but we have to respect all kind of collectors.
Some people on here collect for example Coffee machine Tokens, while most of us see it as garbage we have to respect this.

Xavier had announced some changes to come for Exonumia, Tokens and Medals so we have to see what will come there.

Quote: "apuking"​We should not be too quick with deleting.

​I didn't mean right now. I mean while cleaning up the section, some categories/items could be taken up for discussion if they should stay or go. Afterall, items are probably been added by someone who collects it, otherwise it wouldn't be in the catalogue. We are a community, and we should decide about what goes and what stays as a communty.

One has to take into account, too, that bread / milk / transportation / admission / currency tokens, and many others (including contemporary fakes!), are interesting from the numismatic point of view because they were actually used.

Anything that is meant to be displayed rather than used belongs to the medals or exonumia categories, and it is perfectly legitimate to collect those. You like presidential medals? Great! I'm happy if you can list them in Numista.

IMHO, any coin that comes in a capsule belongs to those categories as well.

The specific problem with civil war and hard times tokens is that they circulated in place of regular coins in the same way as notgeld or conder tokens did. However those are placed under their respective countries and hard times, ect. are placed under tokens. All we are asking for is consistency.

Quote: "Some_Nerd"​The specific problem with civil war and hard times tokens is that they circulated in place of regular coins in the same way as notgeld or conder tokens did. However those are placed under their respective countries and hard times, ect. are placed under tokens. All we are asking for is consistency.

​yes but again it’s a question of who issues the token or coin. I am not familiar with conder tokens as it is outside of my scope but notgeld was issued by governmental authorities be it at the city or town level and so differs from tokens issued by private organizations like hard times tokens. So it would be inconsistent to accord them the exact same status. That doesn’t mean they can’t get their own section but it’s not included with coins issued by the US gov’t

Actually quite a bit of notgeld was privately issued, not issued by a local government. Further, many pieces were not intended to be circulated at all and probably never were. If we're being totally honest here, I think notgeld has a somewhat privileged position on the site due to the number of collectors who appreciate it (including me).

Conder tokens are also private issues, not government authorized coins. Likewise, Canadian provincial coins are, for the most part, private issues, and whether or not they actually circulated at all depends on the piece and is sometimes debated due to lack of documentation either way. Both of these are listed under country in which they circulated, which seems perfectly fair to me since they represent an important chapter of numismatic history for their countries.

Confounding things further, US sales tax tokens were indeed authorized by state governments - most people seem to barely know they ever existed, and they wind up in *Tokens* despite representing 12 state government issuers. There are other examples of money which circulated and was either authorized by a government or backed by legitimate banks and yet winds up in *Tokens* - POW and concentration camp money comes immediately to mind. What's the difference between leprosarium/lazareto coins, which are all listed under their issuing countries, and camp money, which is usually listed under tokens? Neither represent the common circulating coinage of the country, both are specialized government issues for physically isolated groups.

Numista is more than just a collecting website to me, I have used it to discover a great deal of genuine history, not only numismatic but just general world history. I know an awful lot more about African history and geography than I did before using this site, and it's because you can browse the catalog and just say "what the heck is that?" and dive down the rabbit hole. If a coin type was important enough to actually circulate widely in a particular area, it represents a perhaps obscure but important and interesting corner of history. Discovering those things is much easier when they're accessible through a country's heading rather than buried in the interminable list alongside the toilet tokens.