A Great New Blacksmith Find - Ships, Colonies And Commerce Token, Bl-24B

That is a great find. Since there are so many varieties of "regular" Ships Colonies & Commerce tokens your knowledge and study has paid off.
I have a nice collection of Canadian Colonial Tokens but no luck yet on finding anything like that!

So sorry Doug. I see I confused Colonial Tokens with Colonial John. My bad. Bill

Other than the BL-15's I stopped seriously buying Blacksmiths around 10-15 years ago ... having said that a lot of new entries exist in Charlton. Some I agree with others maybe are British CCC imports. These are unquestionably of a Blacksmith Canadian origin obviously. I own several pieces of the more common types. I would grade this minimally Fine but possibly VF. Even from two photos (the Charlton plate and your discovery) ... one can see easily these are irregularly struck so these would grade based on the striking strength along the rim peripheries IMO and not the central areas. So this could even be a VF! Its a huge find. Expect your grading service to call it Fine and not VF IMO. Still huge. Grading companies are not very good in interpreting irregularly struck coins or coins not struck in collars same as here in the States with NGC, PCGS and ANACS.
You must remember Blacksmiths in many ways was a dumping ground for Canadians for long time that anything uni-face and/or crude was an automatic Blacksmith and the cross-analysis of seeing if these could be English imported counterfeits never entered into the equation but exceptions have occurred as in the deletion of Blacksmith Wood 42. Hope you enjoyed my chapter on Blacksmiths in Forgotten Coins and again a great find! I only present the evidence and my experience if any more Blacksmiths are added or delisted as English CCCs its up to my neighbors across the border - these are their historical treasures - I am just a concerned neighbor across the border. LOL.

John Lorenzo
Numismatist
United States

Terrific story and awesome find. Thanks for sharing.

I am not sure of the VF considerations. Different grading companies do hold to different standards.

I was disappointed with ICCS grading my best ensample as a F-12; I believe a F-15 would have been more accurate.

In any event, my ICCS F-12 is comparable to the posted photos of your token. I believe your token to be at best, a F-15.

Perhaps NGC or PCGS would be more liberal.

Grading is subjective and buy the coin/token on what your evaluation is; do not solely rely on the certification grade.

doug

Before I had even heard of blacksmith tokens back in the 80's, when I started collecting heavily Vicky large cents along with a great deal of stuff from seemingly every other country in the world, I got 10-15 of them in lots that I used to buy. I actually tossed them away and used them as golf-ball markers and then tossed them because of the apparent wear (that really wasn't wear0. I kick myself every time I think about it.