What In The World? "Potty Coin"?!

This is nothing new, I've seen "potty coins" ever since I started collecting in the late 1970's Bowers has had some that he sold many years ago in his price lists, I know other dealers used to have them in their cases at shows pretty often in the 1980's, I hadn't thought about them nor seen one in quite sometime now. Surprised Vermontensium and other collectors here had not heard of these before now.

There are some quite nicely engraved 1800's "potty" coins I've seen selling for well over $250 apiece. Very much in line with Hobo nickels or Love Tokens. Heritage even auctions them occasionally.

http://coins.ha.com/itm/love-tokens.../427-82122.s That one sold for almost $1K!

Bobby131313 it's not just ICG here is an NGC (NCS) one...
http://coins.ha.com/itm/trade-dolla...6023-13400.s - The coin image is NSFW - like the 1916 SLQ!

Some that sold at Stack's Auctions:
http://www.stacksarchive.com/viewca...adinglevel=1

These are actively collected and can have more value than the low grade coin they are engraved on.

Didn't know I was so rounded in my numismatic studies huh?

Here is a previous CCF Thread on them: https://goccf.com/t/133301

And some more images of various designs on Twenty Cent Pieces from the new Double Dimes book/website. http://www.doubledimes.com/Potty.html

Following from an article on "Diversifying a Trade dollar collection" - by James D. Sneddon of the Carson City Coin Club. It has some great background on why the Potty Dollars were most likely made.

Since the Trade dollars weren't worth face value, some people modified the figure of Ms. Liberty to appear as if she were sitting on a chamber pot or a toilet, as a way to dishonor and mock the denomination, even to the point of making potty dollars out of several of the Proof coins.

In doing research on potty dollars, I do know that both P-Mint specimens and S-Mint specimens exist. I've not been able to confirm the existence of a Carson City potty dollar, but I'd very much like to have one (or some) in my collection.* Right now, I only own three potty dollars: an 1875-S, an 1877-S, and an 1878-S.

I have good reason to believe that Carson City potty dollars exist, because I know for sure that at least two impaired Proof potty dollars exist. One is an 1880 in VF condition from the New England collection, and the other is an 1879 in F/VF that was sold privately in 1993. I have to believe that a person is a lot more likely to find a "CC" potty dollar than he or she is to find an 1879 to 1883 impaired Proof potty dollar.

DevEngvd? = Deviantly Engraved?
I was pretty sure PCGS was grading them as well, I just hadn't found any quickly.

Yeah, I have seen them plenty of times before. ALthough much cruder, I see them in a similar light as I do hobo nickels. Some are crudely done in a jokingly manner, while others are more carefully crafted and viewed as artwork, as crude as it might seem.

Wow. The writers for the animated TV show South Park could have a field day with this.

Anybody who trashes TPG's, especially the big two, needs to have a very vivid flashback to when the market was mostly ungraded material. My uncle collected coins in the '60's, '70's, and '80's, and was pretty much constantly ripped off, from what I can tell. Coins marked BU by the dealers were cleaned, circ pieces were bumped 2-3 grades, you get the idea. TPG's are great for teaching how grading is done properly and preserving the industry's integrity, because god knows that this industry, left to it's own devices, would probably have destroyed itself by now.

I cannot speak for all, but I still buy ungraded material. Education, not slabs, is they key to collector success.


You know it, we always say it...

Buy the coin, not the slab (label, holder, written description, horoscope... you get the idea).

I am not saying TPGs are without value, but sometimes they make me want to...

Looks like the good, the bad and the ugly (potty coins) are destined to co-exist ... along with the TPG'ers.

Well that is what it took before the TPG's came along so I guess coin collecting must have died out over 2000 years ago, the TPG's never came into existence (since coin collecting died out so long before)and everything we are doing now is a collective figment of out imaginations.

No the hobby would not die out, it would be smaller and more knowledgeable.

Sometimes I see the coin collecting hobby as similar to a lot of people who like art and would love to paint pictures. But that took time, talent, and practice, so paint by numbers was invented.