Yours is the most frequently found type, but much finer examples were made by Spencers of London(later, Toye, Kenning & Spencer, suppliers of Masonic Regalia) for use in masonic ritual. It's more correct name is a GÖRLITZER SHEKEL
Of your type, probably 20-30 pass through my hands each year and this is the typical catalogue copy.
Modern fake "false shekel" fantasy coin loosely imitating Judaean coinage types of the first century AD.
Obverse:
Censer with incense rising
Around which,in Hebrew:
SHEKEL OF ISRAEL
Reverse:
Rod of Aaron budding with almonds and leaves
Around which, in Hebrew:
JERUSALEM THE HOLY
Note that inscription is in modern Hebrew script.
So-called "false shekels" were produced (mostly) in Europe from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Some were produced as pilgrim mementos but many were made to deceive. The majority follow the design pattern seen here, though with variants, and they exist in a variety of metals.
"By 1840, many of the large medal and coin companies located in London England cast or struck these censer pieces and offered them to the public as religious pilgrims tokens or as true reproductions of the genuine shekel coin or of the biblical 'thirty pieces of silver'.
It had been reported by Dr. Bruno Kisch that American Masonic lodges sometimes used false shekel tokens in their proceedings, but none of these are actually of the censer piece design. This token may therefore have been a medallion used by an English Masonic chapter in their sacred rites."
False Shekels - American Israel Numismatic Association
Posted 12/15/2017 6:11 pm
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