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WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE: DOLLARS OR TOKENS AND MEDALS?Last week Dennis Tucker posed the question, “If you had a choice of receiving one or the other of these, which would you choose, and why?” The choices were: a) a ten-pound bag of mixed, completely unsearched 19th-century silver dollars (types unspecified), or b) a ten-pound bag of mixed, completely unsearched 19th-century U.S. medals and tokens. Here’s what some E-Sylum readers decided. Chris Fuccione writes: In my younger days I would have said that I would take the bag of dollar coins but as I got older my interests have changed where I am now more interested in the history of coinage than I am in the coins themselves. Besides Civil War Tokens I don’t know that much about medals and tokens. I do know if I got that bag it would take me years to learn about each item. Fred Michaelson writes: I'd go with the exonumia, hands down. The dollar bag could have a lot of monetary value, but it would be as exciting to me as a Home Depot gift card. The exonumia bag could have a much higher excitement value, not to mention a lot more items in it because the average weight of a piece of exonumia is probably quite a bit lower than a dollar's one ounce. Just think of an AU NY and Harlaem RR token or a nice Bolen piece, or a thousand other possibilities. A no-brainer. Ginger Rapsus writes: I would practice what I preach...try collecting something new, and I would take the bag of medals & tokens. Perhaps an unknown variety would turn up. Maybe something scarce. But every item would be interesting, and different from the usual. Hoping for a great bunch of Civil War tokens! Ralf Böpple of Stuttgart, Germany writes: Would I choose a bag of silver dollars or a bag of medals and tokens? I didn't have to think for a second to decide on the exonumia. Need a reason? Counting tailfeathers on Morgan dollars is utterly boring, and the draped bust dollar is the only really attractive design anyway (I hope I don't get banned from US numismatic circles for lifetime for this...)
I can see I'm outnumbered, but I'll go contrarian on this one. As much as I love tokens and medals, I think I’d be too tempted by potential value of the silver dollar bag. Morgan dollars didn’t appear until 1878, so 3/4ths of the bag could be earlier and fairly valuable compared to the average token or medal. But like one of Dennis' respondents, I would probably sell the dollars and buy medals and tokens of my choice with the proceeds (if my wife’s credit card company weren’t already first in line).
-Editor
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: IF GIVEN A CHOICE, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE? (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n08a15.html)
THE BOOK BAZARREWayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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