Among my many exonumia passions are love tokens. I have been quietly working for years on a set of never holed and never mounted Liberty Seated dime love tokens, 1837 to 1891, and I am just a half dozen dates away from completion. Every now and then another love token that is far outside my field comes along, the collector in me takes over, and presto, before I know it, I am the owner of yet another neat exonumia item. Case in point is this installment’s love token.
The host coin is a 1904 Barber dime, not even from the same century as my usual love token pursuits, but intriguing enough that it’s now a part of my "hoard of useless ephemera" as I call my exonumia collection. The coin itself is VF or so but the Barber side has been scraped somewhat. The reverse, however, is crisp and nicely engraved. The outer rim is made up of what could be tiny half-sunbursts that are intricately carved. At the center is the Confederate "Stars and Bars" flag that was a focal point in the evening news some while back. Two tassels dangle from the top of the flag’s short pole while 13 "stars" adorn the cross and tiny scoring lines make up the field. Around the flag is "TWILL LIVE IN SONG AND STORY" and C.S.A. is seen beneath. I have seen articles about this design in the Love Letter, the journal of the Love Token Society. It seems these same Confederate sympathies are found on numerous dates in the Barber dime series suggesting that the origin of this C.S.A. tribute is the early 20th century. I’ve yet to see the C.S.A. design on a Liberty Seated dime, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time. If one does pop up, I’m certain I’ll be interested!
