Novelty? Fraternity? Restruck Indian Head

here is the reply I got from DYER & RATLIFF:




i still feel a need to determine which frat/society it belonged to. it's obvious it's not one of the BIG coast to coasters, might be hard to find, but the journey is half the fun!

its been posted (by someone else) on a secret society site (more like conspiracy theory site, but hey, there's people there who know something about the symbols etc) as well as on another coin forum.

and I also just recently put it up on a large 'greek life' site (huge forum specific to fraternities etc), getting some good discussion on translating the shield text

yes it probaly is a defuncto group - I've tried countless searches and scanned hundreds, if not a thousand, frat/society logos - and getting nothing similiar.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/s...#post2169629

(above) someone claiming it is a high school fraternity Beta Phi Sigma (now world wide), still waiting for some confirmation.

another minor thread:

http://www.cointalk.com/t212052/

The shield description of the Indiana-based Beta Phi Sigma high school fraternity from that contemporary (1912) reference is a near-perfect match. It says "its coat of arms which alone may be used on jewelry or stationery, consists of a Shield crossed by a band having the Fraternity name written in Greek, in the upper portion of the shield, four stars, and in the lower three. The whole is surmounted by a skull, profile view." Together with the direct connection to Indiana and the correct time period, it's a solved mystery. I agree that it's really difficult to see "BetaPhiSigma" translated to Greek in the inscription but, given the other evidence, it's close enough. It should be something like BήταΦιΣίγμα. Keeping in mind that most folks in the US are Greek-illiterate, ant that the jewelry company may have been working from notes written by a high school student, it's not surprising that the μ in Sigma looks like an η (wrong side of letter extended below baseline) or that the ι in phi is accented and the ι in Sigma is not (should be reversed). You've got to squint to see a beta though. The G could be closed to form a sloppy B. The last letter in beta is a pretty clear alpha. The mark before the alpha looks like an uncrossed tau (uncrossed t's are very common in English). Closing the top of the three remaining marks would form the ή. That's very sloppy but consistent with the errors seen elsewhere in the name.

This was an interesting token. Good luck with it.