Masonic Penny - Drumheller, Alberta

that lodge was started in 1924 but they didn't get the charter until 1925 so they could start building there membership but couldn't start charity works under the Freemason name until they had a charter empowering them to work. date of mintage not used and the lodge number is when you get a charter so that was the 27th lodge built within that district.

That's especially mysterious, because as far as I know, none of my family is Jewish... I thought it was a synagogue token or something (with zero knowledge of synagogues or Canadian tokens) when I first saw it from the Star of David alone, but then I found out it was Masonic - from what I've seen, the design of these pennies varies from town to town. I just assumed the Star of David was one of those wacky secret society things.

Here's the other one (in worse condition...):


Notice how the mark is different: and more abstract. Is it C.I., C.G., C.E., or what?

Correct. These pennies, with the central disc blank, are given to Mark Masons when the candidate is "made mark". They are then encouraged to invent an insignia of their own and engrave it onto their penny, in a similar manner to how mediaeval "free" stonemasons carved their own personal ID marks onto stones they had themselves carved, so they could receive proper credit (and payment).

Given the number of rather well worn Mark Mason pennies out there with the central disc still blank, I would assume not everyone who was given a penny bothered to do the engraving thing. Further, the engravings did not have to be their initials - they could be whatever they wished, so long as it was unique to that person. So your relative's mark penny, assuming he was given one and assuming he had it engraved, may not be engraved "WLM" or with any other name or monogram you would associate with him.


That would be a safe assumption. There's certainly plenty of hexagrams and pentagrams to be found in the symbols and badges of the various Masonic and related organizations.

As far as I am aware (and my awareness is not of someone who has actually been involved with Freemasonry; people who aren't "in" can never be sure about such things because the people who are "in" aren't supposed to tell) Fremasonry, wherever it is encountered, is totally non-religion-specific. All Lodges are encouraged to welcome people of all faiths equally (though atheism, I believe, is still frowned upon) and "Jewish-only" or "Baptist-only" lodges would be discouraged from forming.