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MORE ON THE NEW DEPARTURE BELL COMPANY 'TOKEN' Does the above token ring a bell? In recent issues we discussed the interesting "whatzit", thought to be a Bristol, CT, token from the New Departure Bell Company.
-Editor
  Eric Vanhove writes: It was part of the ringer for the New Departure Bicycle Bell. Looks to me like someone cut it off of the ringer and filed it down to make it look like a coin. Julia Casey also came up with this, and like Eric, she used the worthpoint.com database. She writes: I did a little digging into this mystery utilizing the information provided by John Phipps about the New Departure Bell Company. I found the following listing for a New Departure bicycle bell - Model E10 1/2! I also found where this company advertised bell promotional giveaways. I have attached an ad from Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin) April 1, 1897 which states: If you want a bicycle bell free, write us
Looking at that bell I wonder if this piece isn't even a token at all - but is actually a broken off thumb tab from the bell that activates the ringer! And if you look at the auction "token" you can see a broken area at the edge.  Thanks to both Julia and Eric - looks like they hit the nail on the head. With her baggage tag research last week, Julia's hit two bullseye's in a row, making her the Annie
Oakley of numismatic research. Thanks, everyone. -Editor
 To read the complete Worthpoint listings, see:
Regarding the baggage tag overstrike, Bill Miller of Denton, MD adds: Thank you and all the people at your website for helping me to identify my "mystery" token. It's good to have access to so many bright people. I don't think I could have come up with a solution in a dozen years. To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
 Wayne 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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