One of our favorite issues with its dignified cow and proud sailing ship motifs, but behind the eye-catching design is a fascinating glimpse of American history.

Dealer Bill Jones provided us with some wonderful information about these motifs and their meaning and we found it so interesting that we quote Bill here:

"The agricultural images that appear on this piece date back to Thomas Jefferson, who is credited with the founding of the Democratic Party. Jefferson believed that plantations, farms and agriculture in general were the foundation of America’s social values and commerce. Jefferson’s ideal American citizen was the yeoman farmer, living on his own piece of land and producing everything that he needed to be self-sufficient. Cities were loathsome places that bread crime and sloth. Farms were the backbone of America and were essential to the survival and progress of the nation.The Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson continued to foster this image. Jackson was an advocate of a small central government and an economy that was driven by agriculture. His political opponents, the Whigs, favored a larger central government that levied higher taxes and used those receipts from extensive public works, like roads, canals and even a national university.This token, which was issued during the age of Jackson, symbolized the Democratic Party – Jackson point of view. The Democrats continued to push the idea that agriculture was key to the nation’s commerce, ethics, morality and well-being. To paraphrase William Jennings Bryan in his 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech, ‘If our cities were destroyed our nation would survive, but if our farms were destroyed, grass would grow in the streets of our cities’."

Numismatically, this example is a nice chocolate brown with some very faded mint red lingering in the devices.

Not an especially rare issue, but always popular and very difficult to locate in condition better than this one.

SOLD

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