While poking around in online listings this week I discovered a curious token set that turned out to be offered by one of our new advertisers, Northeast Numismatics. It was
described as an "Anillo 3 Token Restrike Set". While I would normally reach out to one of our regular token experts like Dave Schenkman, I've been retraining myself to check the Newman
Numismatic Portal first. There I found a February 1972 TAMS Journal article by Chriss Christiansen (p41-46) with the whole story behind them. Here's an excerpt (minus the detailed token
listing), along with photos of the tokens offered by Northeast. -Editor
FAKE-DIE TRIAL-FANTASY & RESTRIKES
Chriss Christiansen, TAMS #1718
Much has been said in the past few months, pro and con, of the batch of tokens that recently came on the market, and which were sold by Anillo Industries Inc. of Orange, California. What are these
aluminum chits to be called? This is anyones prerogative in determining what they are. The following is a little background data on what has transpired:
1 — The dies originally belonged to the now defunct L.A. RUBBER STAMP CO. or L.A.R.S.
2 — Anillo purchased these dies at an auction of the LARS Co.
3 _ In order to find out what they had purchased, they made a Trial Stamping of the dies and from there were possibly persuaded by a few well known collectors that enticed Anillo into stamping out
approximately 32 sets, of 3500 tokens to a set.
4 — TAMS was contacted about running an ad in their Journal, but because of the Policy set down on Restrikes, refused the Anillo ad, however, ANA saw fit to accept their ad along with another
minor publication.
5 — Each token is aluminum, various sizes, all uniface (one-sided) and mostly all from California, some from Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and South of the Border.
6 — They originally sold at $250.00 a set, the price has recently been lowered to $150.00 and possibly less. Some sets were even donated for cataloging purposes.
Some collectors are considering these tokens to be die-trial pcs. as Anillo tried the dies they had purchased in the Auction sale. Other collectors are considering them to be fakes as they were
made up and appear to be specious, deceptive and fraudulent. Some are classifying as fantasy tokens because some of the tokens were never placed into use, either because of mistakes on the dies or
the order for the tokens fell thru. Yes, they can also be called restrikes, one sided only, in a different metal in some cases than what were originally struck by LARS.
This batch of tokens has created many hard feelings among the collectors and dealers, mainly because they have been passed off as genuine. Many Auction sales have included them in their listings,
some with the die-trial notations, others are being sold with the explanation they were found in the old LARS warehouse, and others are being sold outright across the counter and bourse table as
genuine.
Any comments or questions are invited on any of these uniface die-trial tokens, which I prefer to call them, as this is what I was billed for, and a full listing has been made and documented.
Ah! So these are uniface pieces, which explains why the lot listing only showed one side of each token. Many thanks to the Newman Portal and to the Token and Medal Society for
making their publication available. I otherwise might never have found this spot-on 45-year-old article.
But I did reach out to Dave Schenkman next, and he kindly provided these images of several other Anillo restrikes. Thanks! -Editor
Dave adds:
On the 1 Manicure piece you can see the L.A. RUB. STP. CO. signature.
To read the complete lot description, see:
Anillo 3 Token Restrike Set
(https://www.northeastcoin.com/popupcontainer.jsp?include=vi&itemKey=zi26_157876504)
To read the complete article on NNP, see:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/525697?page=42
Wayne Homren, Editor
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