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 Replies: 13 / Views: 1,921 |
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Pillar of the Community
Luxembourg
588 Posts |
Hello, Strange subject  Thin coin has been transformed into a box as you may see from the outside. Although the coin seems to have been used a lot since it's tranformation, the quality of the work can still be recognized to have been excellent, I feel.   But the surpise is inside. The lady on the enamelled picture is the english queen Victoria. By comparing with pictures I have found on the net, I believe she must have been in her late 30. So the picture is almot of the same period than the coin. Does anyone here have a clue what could be the use to hide Victoria inside a coin of Napoleon III?Here are the pictures of the inside:   |
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
9864 Posts |
People appreciated the interesting and unusual, then as now.
Thanks for sharing!
"Dipping" is not considered cleaning...
-from PCGS website
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4227 Posts |
I love those. I need to find one for myself someday.  |
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Pillar of the Community
778 Posts |
Strange and unusual!
I like it a lot!
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Moderator
 Australia
16832 Posts |
Such coins have popped up fairly regularly on the forum - apparently, it was quite a fad with the street vendors of Paris in the mid-1800s to have these locket-coins made. Old thread, pointing to an even older thread. Coincidentally, a few weeks after the more recent of those two threads was posted, somebody brought one of these along to my local coin club. But I have not seen one before with an original picture or message still inside. As is pointed out in the old threads, they actually needed two coins to make one of these: one with the portrait lathed out and notch carved, the other ground down wafer-thin to fit inside the hole of the other one. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3343 Posts |
Interesting coin(s). It looks like a harmless descendant of the boite de forcat, hollowed out coins used to smuggle contraband.
"Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire
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Pillar of the Community
United States
865 Posts |
That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!
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Pillar of the Community
Austria
566 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 Luxembourg
588 Posts |
Thank you for all your nice comments. But does anyone have an idea why someone would put the English queen into this coin? I got it from ebay UK. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
477 Posts |
Maybe it symbolised the unity of Britain and France against Russia in the Crimean war? There declaration was on the 28th March 1854, joining the Crimean war on the side of the Ottoman empire.
Edited by awallin01
03/26/2014 6:42 pm
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Valued Member
United States
365 Posts |
Nailed it, awallin01.
Now if that unity can be found again... ;) Can Queen Elizabeth fit inside a cored-out 2 euro?
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
477 Posts |
Haha I'm sure she could :), I was thinking about how coincidentally this is 1 day away from the 160th Anniversary of that declaration-and with obvious tensions at the moment.
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
17947 Posts |
Fascinating - never seen one of these before, although I do have another Anglo-French 10 centimes - overstamped with a Pears Soap advertisement!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4409 Posts |
This is cool I have never seen one of these before.
-MV
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Replies: 13 / Views: 1,921 |
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Posted 03/23/2014 8:48 pm
