QUERY: UNUSUAL 1811-DATED TOKEN INFORMATION SOUGHT

Here's a query for the biggest collective brain trust in numismatics: the E-Sylum readership!

I've enclosed an image of one of the most unusual pieces I've ever acquired, an item that walked up to my table at FUN. The fellow who brought it to me asked what it was, to which I confessed I had absolutely no idea but that I found it interesting. I made him a fairly moderate offer, after which he frowned but admitted the most he'd been offered for it so far was $50. He left the table, but returned the next day and sold it to me. Noted E-Sylum contributor Alan Weinberg was at the table, looked at the piece, and told me I had really "stepped up" by paying such a strong price for something that was so entirely mysterious.

Getting home, I lucked into a lot description in one of my favorite and most oft-used catalogues: the 1914 George Parsons sale by Henry Chapman, which happened to be sitting on my desk:

My copy has no PRL, so I'm not sure how much it brought. It was the final lot among the Parsons Hard Times tokens.

The piece has a regular if crude reeded edge. The workmanship is reminiscent of circulating counterfeit one real coins of the era, including a piece in my collection dated 1811, though clearly OIE DIOE and the wreath is suggestive of a dime denomination.

Has anyone else ever encountered one, or a reference to one?

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web