You have heard of wooden nickels. How about a pair of wooden medals?

[BillJones]

These two political pieces are unusual in that they are made of pressed wood. These pieces were made for the 1884 presidential election which paired Grover Cleveland against James G. Blain. They could be called "wooden medals." BTW Cleveland won the election. He was the first Demorcat to win the presidency in 28 years.

 

Grover Cleveland - Thomas Hendricks

 

 

James G. Blain - John "Black Eagle" Logan

 

[WoodenJefferson]

~they are made of pressed wood~

 

Any idea what kind of wood was used, was steam used, pressed for how long, what is the diameter, anything pertinent that you know about them would be nice.

 

Too cool Bill, those are museum grade pieces.

[BillJones]

The only things I know are that they three inches in diameter, and they are listed in Sullivan / DeWitt as GC 1884-1 and JGB 1884-1.

 

As to how they were made, I don't know that one.

 

The Blain piece is "fancier" because it has red velvet around the edge. Sullivan mentioned that in his descriptoin that some pieces had that.

[physics-fan3.14]

That is really cool! Anyone who knows how these were made, please chime in - I would love to hear it.

[Bugmann1974]

Very cool!

 

I would imagine that these are pretty hard to find due to the fragility of wood.

[BillJones]

I've only seen them offered once, and it was in two political items auctions.

 

I was the only bidder so I guess I'm buried in them about $150 apiece. But having asked a few token and medal dealers about them, I've found out that they have never seen these pieces before although they are in DeWitt / Sullivan.

 

I'd say that they are rare.

[ldhair]

Really cool Bill.

One thing is for sure, someone took great care of these over the years.

[EZ_E]

I'm very impressed with the condition of those tokens, Bill!

 

Here's an actual wooden coin of recent manufacture.