AM I NOT A WOMAN & SISTER

[coinsarefun]

1838 HT-81A "AM I NOT A WOMAN & SISTER"

This one is the rarer of the two tokens, they are exactly the same
except for the diameter of the token.



I had this token imaged by Mark Goodman and he has done an outstanding job!








To see this token in large format click on the image here for:

Obverse http://www.coinimaging.com/coinsarefun/big/notawomanobv.jpg

Reverse http://www.coinimaging.com/coinsarefun/big/notawomanrev.jpg





AM I NOT A WOMAN & SISTER antislavery token. It is also said to commemorate the formation of the Liberty Party in 1838

In late 1837 the American Anti-Slavery Society, located at 143 Nassau Street, New York, commissioned the firm of Gibbs Gardner & Co. of Belleville, N.J. to strike these copper tokens.

The AASS published a weekly newspaper, The Emancipator, published by Charles W. Denison and edited by Joshua Leavitt. In its issue of Nov. 23, 1837, the Emancipator ran an advertisement offering the Female Slave tokens made of good copper and with a device on reverse similar to legal U.S. cents, they sold well.

The ad also said that it was proposed to issue Kneeling Male Slave tokens as well, and this accounts for the few pattern pieces of HT 82, which were never produced for circulation.

U.S. Mint Director Patterson moved quickly to suppress the circulation of HT 81, and it is apparent that by late December, 1837, he had succeeded in part. No further ads for the Female Slave tokens appeared in the AASS weekly or in other Journals, but since the number of pieces of HT 81 still surviving is quite large, they may well have been distributed by middlemen.

[Zantetsuken]

1838 HT-81A "AM I NOT A WOMAN & SISTER"

This one is the rarer of the two tokens, they are exactly the same
except for the diameter of the token.



I had this token imaged by Mark Goodman and he has done an outstanding job!








To see this token in large format click on the image here for:

Obverse http://www.coinimaging.com/coinsarefun/big/notawomanobv.jpg

Reverse http://www.coinimaging.com/coinsarefun/big/notawomanrev.jpg





AM I NOT A WOMAN & SISTER antislavery token. It is also said to commemorate the formation of the Liberty Party in 1838

In late 1837 the American Anti-Slavery Society, located at 143 Nassau Street, New York, commissioned the firm of Gibbs Gardner & Co. of Belleville, N.J. to strike these copper tokens.

The AASS published a weekly newspaper, The Emancipator, published by Charles W. Denison and edited by Joshua Leavitt. In its issue of Nov. 23, 1837, the Emancipator ran an advertisement offering the Female Slave tokens made of good copper and with a device on reverse similar to legal U.S. cents, they sold well.

The ad also said that it was proposed to issue Kneeling Male Slave tokens as well, and this accounts for the few pattern pieces of HT 82, which were never produced for circulation.

U.S. Mint Director Patterson moved quickly to suppress the circulation of HT 81, and it is apparent that by late December, 1837, he had succeeded in part. No further ads for the Female Slave tokens appeared in the AASS weekly or in other Journals, but since the number of pieces of HT 81 still surviving is quite large, they may well have been distributed by middlemen.

Beautiful token Stefanie. The image of the woman kneeling is certainly a powerful one, as it symbolised what so many slaves, both female and male, had to endure. I noticed that the 'N' in UNITED is retrograded. I wonder if this was an error or intentional. In either case, it's a nice coin from a not so nice part of U.S. history. Thanks for sharing.

~Daniel.

[RHM22]

Beautiful HTT. Many of the die sinkers for these private tokens weren't especially well known for their grammatical ability. I've seen some CWTs that said "shoot him on the spoot" where it should have been "spot."