1857 HK-830, Aaron White Satirical Dollar

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

The obverse of HK-830 is a pun on hard times. A sow dangles from a hook, with "Sus" on one side of her and "Pendens" on the other, and the years 1837 and 1857 sit above and below, each set off by a short line. Aaron White remembered both years as the times when banks stopped paying out coin, and he remembered the flood of notes from wildcat banks and private firms whose buying power swung wildly and often vanished. Around the rim the words "Never Keep" and "A Paper Dollar" begin a motto that the reverse completes, where a second sow roots in a jar marked for ten dollars. White, a Connecticut lawyer, made the pieces early in the Civil War to show his scorn for the greenbacks printed to pay for it. This one is brass, 35 mm, a companion to copper HK-829 and white metal HK-831.

Cross References

HK-830; PCGS #643568