Auction Number 40 Closed (#11006)

419 - LOW 24 / HT-38 R7 UNC Details 60% Red and quite striking and beautiful but with a tiny D counterstamped between the forehead and E in E Pluribus Unum. Very rare "Bushnell" token, this the NOT ONF CENT spelling error. Hard Times tokens HT-38-41, HT 53-55 and HT-59-60 have been long thought to be the work of Charles Bushnell and in more recent times by a collaboration of J. N. T. Levick and Henry Davenport. Regardless they were likely made around 1860 in quantities of 10 or fewer to create rarities. They are often found dark and porous, perhaps pickled or artificially aged. Beautiful and untreated pieces such as this are even rarer, and almost unheard of with this much red. The Ford specimen was said to be ex. Dunham and Miller but perhaps the pedigrees were switched somewhere along the way as evidence by the tiny D. These tiny D's are known on Hard Times tokens among other things and are thought to be a collectors identification mark used by William Forrester Dunham. He counterstamped nearly his entire collection including his 1804 Dollar! A NGC AU55 example of Low 27 / HT-41 sold for $3,910 in our February 2014 sale. From the Charles Litman, Don Miller and George Hetrich collections. (4000-6000)