1851 Braided Penny Octagon Shape

Nineteenth century machinists were constantly plying and honing their skills. They belonged to a great many fraternal organizations, primarily Masonic orders, wherein they shared their skills and schooled one another. They were constantly experimenting in an effort to develop or improve a patent.

Over the years, I've seen a number of four, eight and six-sided coins. I've yet to learn of any common purpose for these pieces. Here's one of my favorite machinist-made productions, a pie-crimper ...

P.S. - Welcome to the CCF !

That is cool Raymo!

Thanks to all here for the warm welcome and feedback! Here is the backside pic per request.

Welcome to the CCF, Jack ....




Having long collected, researched and written about slavery-related exonumia, I have yet to see a scintilla of firsthand or even secondhand evidence that supports this allegation. Plausible, yes. Provable, not. IMHO, this alleged slavery, Civil War connection appears to be naught but a bogus marketing ploy.

I have a coin that's similar to the one dug ....




Machinists often used coins to ply their skills and/or create something of use. Just prior to the Civil War, many large cents were "cut down" in size to create "copperhead badges" of sorts. Copperheads, as they were labeled, (note the snake metaphor) were folks who opposed the war. The cut down large cents made Liberty's head appear more prominent on the copper coin (note that the smaller, copper-nickel or white cents were then in use, too). Openly displaying these copperhead coins on lapels often led to fights and occasional riots among the citizenry. Consequently, many copperhead protesters took to carrying in pockets. It's impossible to say that these octagonal pieces were used by copperheads, but, given numerous news stories from that era, this possibility is far more plausible than the slavery yarn.

For further reading on the copperhead badges, see ....

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22...ome&ie=UTF-8