Non-Token Exonumia *pics Appreciated!!*

In Australia, Rum was used as currency.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_corps, and go down to the part headed "The Corps and rum trafficking in NSW"
also, we still talk about The Rum Rebellion of 1808 -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Rebellion

The following is another episode in the history of rum in Australia -
"Governor Macquarie's Rum Hospital
Upon his arrival in the Colony of New South Wales at the beginning of 1810, Governor Macquarie discovered that the Sydney Cove's hospital was an affair of tents and temporary buildings. Macquarie set aside land on the western edge of the Government Domain for a new hospital and created a new road -- Macquarie Street -- to provide access to it. Plans were drawn up but the British Government refused to provide funds to build the hospital. Consequently, Macquarie entered into a contract with a consortium of businessmen - Garnham Blaxcell, Alexander Riley and, later, D'Arcy Wentworth - to erect the new hospital. They were to receive convict labour and supplies and a monopoly on rum imports from which they expected to recoup the cost of the building and gain considerable profits. The contract allowed them to import 45,000 (later increased to 60,000) gallons of rum to sell to colonists and was signed on 6 November 1810. ..."
- lifted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hospital

The two surviving wings of the Rum Hospital became the Sydney Mint, and the New South Wales Parliament.

Quite interesting about the rum "money" what with the rum, in effect, serving medicinal purposes, eh what? Consequently, a flask would have then been the equivalent of a wallet, and the term "spent" then took on additional meaning! Rum collectors back then might have been called .... rumismatists!!

CoinChick ... That's an "EF" handle ... I'd vote to keep it. A coin chick by any other name is still a CoinChick!

Just spotted a neat example of a Civil War era "chit" that I mentioned, now for sale on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...t_600wt_1185

I'm in Tennessee, being a "relocated" Yankee.

Never much thought about a singular favorite though. The Civil War token series, Lincolniana, has been a favorite genre since I was a teen. The hook for me tends to be history, attaching some significance to the exonumia. The counterstamps, like my avatar, are a genuine challenge that I find most intriguing. Pretty, they're not. Many a collector has, at some time or another, muttered to himself/herself, "If only this coin could talk" ... tell where it's been, with whom, etc. Many a counterstamped coin does just that, if one follows the clues; shades of history mystery. From my humble perspective, the genre of counterstamped coins is one of the "final frontiers" of numismatics. I have hundreds of "favorites" and trying to pick just one would be tantamount to picking your favorite kid ... Any piece that I can find some history on will tend to be a favorite!

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Numismatics has always been a male-dominated hobby, especially in America (but apparently less so in places like Britain and New Zealand), so a large proportion of our membership is male; about half our members have not declared gender in their profile, but of those who have declared, the ratio is about 6:1. But we have two women "on staff": Susanlynn9 is one of the forum's co-founders and xshift is one of the moderators.