Question About Unusual Coinage Materials/Post Your Unusual Materials Coins!

As a geologist, I can appreciate that Dam Quarter!!

Where did you get yours? I got one on ebay in December, I believe it was one of two that were listed last year and haven't seen one since then. I've seen them in large lots of tokens (like through Heritage) however, which makes me think they're relatively common yet still difficult to get a hold of.

@nautilator,

No worries, I only needed the one and I picked up the one that I posted here off of ebay back in May. It would get pretty expensive and time consuming for me to duplicate the entire circulating set. Some of the pieces are just incredibly hard to get ahold of. So, I currently have no plans to even attempt to make a duplicate set. It took several years off and on to put this one together.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that I have completed the full circulating coin/tokens set at 34 different materials represented. I left out any materials that I considered to be an impurity meaning that it wasn't added on purpose or wasn't meant to be part of the coin/token. So, I left out mercury from the Silvered late Roman Empire coins, Cadmium impurities from Feuchtwanger cents, and the silicon, sulfur and phosphorus impurities from the Mexican New Peso small change. I also left out any material that had no circulation value attributed to it. That's why I left out the mica from the US Civil War encased postage stamps since their value was attributed to the stamp and not the mica.

The materials represented in the circulating set are aluminum, antimony, arsenic (copper bell arsenic), bamboo, bone, carbon(compressed coal dust), cardboard (struck lacquered pressed thick paper Notgeld), celluloid(ivory plastic), chrome, clay(porcelain), copper, CP3(a laminated paper composite similar to Formica), fiber (compressed, Manchoukuo, vulcanized), glass, gold, granite, iron, lead, leather, magnesium, manganese, nickel, palladium/ruthenium, paper (compressed pages of books), plastic, platinum, silver, tin, zinc, vulcanite (vulcanized black rubber), and wood.

If you know of any other materials used for coins or tokens that actually circulated. Please let me know.

It would seem that all that is left to do in regards to the circulating set is the write up. I still have to do a bit more research on the pieces in the set before I can produce a good write up but when I am done with it I will post a rough draft in this thread first.

In regards to the granite token the "Black book of US paper money" attributes that token as a token that is made out of concrete and not a token that is made of granite but after inspecting it in hand and looking at other examples on the internet. I'm pretty sure that it is made of granite. What is your take on that? Concrete? Or granite?

Lookin' forward to reading this when you have it!

@Spence,

Thanks!

I really would at some point like to find out if one can consistently distinguish the different leathers without being told. The Austrian (white) notgelds, I've read they were made with chamois (goat), but Heritage recently put some overpriced ones out there and just labelled them as suede.

The Estonian one smells enough that it makes me think it's sheepskin, but I don't really know that. Our own Black Eagle Commandery one has the color and grain to be sheepskin, but I ain't opening it to find out!

On another note, I saw a pair of Islamic glass jetons at the show in Philadelphia. They were really beautiful and it made me regret they weren't coins proper.

@nautilator,

Those are some pretty interesting leather currency notes. Thanks for posting them! I like the idea of set composed of all of the different kinds of leather used as money but that is bit beyond the scope of the circulating coins/tokens materials set that I am finishing up now.

In regards to the glass tesserae again. The reason that I don't consider them to be proper coins is not because I don't think that they were used as coins but the fact that I think that they inherently lack the ability to qualify as ancient coins. The reason for this is because in my opinion in order for them to qualify as ancient coins the attributed face value would have to be backed up by the intrinsic value of the material that the coin was made of. Since the glass in the tesserae had no real intrinsic value they can't be classified as proper coins but were instead classified as tesserae (tokens).

That's awesome! Thanks for posting it! I wasn't aware that there were any dowmetal items that had a face value.

It's in really good shape for being primarily made out of magnesium. It should be very light weight. Do you happen to know the size and weight of it? Also, I wonder why they chose the face value of 20 cents and not a quarter.

I found the token catalog reference for it:

http://tokencatalog.com/token_recor...on_id=364962