Exonumia

Exonumia is the study of coin-like objects such as token coins and medals, and other items used in place of legal currency or for commemoration. This includes elongated coins, encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, badges, counterstamped coins, wooden nickels and other similar items. It is related to numismatics proper (concerned with coins which have been legal tender), and many coin collectors are also exonumists.

Besides the above strict definition, others extend it to include non-coins which may or may not be legal tenders such as cheques, credit cards and similar paper. These can also be considered notaphily or scripophily.

The noun exonumia is derived from two classical roots: exo, meaning "out-of" in Greek, and nummus, meaning "coin" in Latin; thus, "out[side]-of-[the category]coins". Usually, the term "exonumia" is applied to these objects in the United States, while the equivalent British term is paranumismatica.

The words exonumist and exonumia were coined in July 1960 by Russell Rulau, a recognized authority and author on the subject, and accepted by Webster's dictionary in 1965.

Copper trade token of Durfee & Peck, Indian traders, on Missouri River in various locations, circa: 1869. Photo by Jerry Adams of Token Tales.

Items such as bus tokens (transportation tokens), bar or pub tokens, and casino tokens or chips are some of the more common forms of exonumia. Related, but normally considered to be a different branch of numismatics, is odd and curious money. Another important area of token collecting is Latin American coffee or plantation tokens. Many but not all of these tokens were made in the states while others were made in Europe and England. You will find these tokens circulated in more than one language although Spanish is the prevalent one. Plantation tokens can have an array of denominations and names. The name can be the owner or their relatives. Sometimes the token can have the name of the farm or finca. Lastly, tokens had allegorical symbols to identify the owner. Very little documentation exists since the inception of Latin American tokens, therefore, many tokens cannot be verified as to who the real owner is or what the symbol or symbols meant.

Tokens in Latin America were used as currency since there wasn't enough official currency available. Customarily, workers could convert the tokens to official currency on Saturdays. It is widely understood that many plantation owners in Latin America had their own commissaries, therefore, the workers were able to use the farm owners tokens to pay for provisions. It is important to note that in the 19th century many of the plantation workers and families lived on the farm they worked on.

Latin American tokens were made in all types of base metals and alloys plus plastic, celluloid and bakelite. Unique to Costa Rica were tokens made in paper fashion, either uniface or printed on both sides. Many people call these paper chits. The word "Boleto" is used solely in Costa Rica for the word token whereas "ficha" is used in the rest of Latin America.

Other forms

Other forms of Exonumia include:

"Love Tokens " - Legal coinage engraved for a loved one.
"Hobo nickels" - Usually "buffalo nickels" engraved crudely by hand mostly in that era (1913-38)
"Tax Tokens"
"Encased coins"
"Encased Postage"
"Game counters"
"Good for Mirrors"
"Shell cards"
"Telephone Tokens"
"Gambling/casino chips"
"Elongated coins"
"Civil War Tokens"
"Hard Times Tokens"
"Dog License Tags"
"Counterstamped Coins"
"Military Tokens"
"Transportation Tokens"
"Parking Tokens"
"Wooden Nickel"
"Medals" - both privately minted and minted by governments

Sources and references

Numismatics (Lat. numisma, nomisma, a coin; from the Greek, derived from voµi eiv, to use according to law), is the scientific study of currency and its history in all its varied forms.
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Numismatics (ancient Greek: νομισματική) is the scientific study of money and its history in all its varied forms.
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currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and/or services. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value. A currency is the dominant medium of exchange.
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COIN can refer to:

Collaborative Innovation Networks
Counterinsurgency
Coin

This article is about monetary coins.

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banknote (often known as a bill or simply note) is a kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and under many jurisdictions is used as legal tender.
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<onlyinclude> This list of circulating currencies contains the 194 current official or de facto currencies of the 192 United Nations member states, one UN observer state, three partially recognized sovereign states, six unrecognized countries, and 32 dependencies.
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In economics, a local currency, in its common usage, is a currency not backed by a national government (and not necessarily legal tender), and intended to trade only in a small area. These currencies are also referred to as community currency.
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Company scrip is currency issued in certain industries to pay workers. Such scrip can only be exchanged by wage-earners in company stores owned by their employers and often charging inflated prices. In the UK, such systems have been formally outlawed under Truck Acts.
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Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) also known as LETSystems are local, non-profit exchange networks in which goods and services can be traded without the need for printed currency.
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time-based currency is an alternative currency where the unit of exchange is the hour.

Time-based currencies value everyone’s contributions equally. One hour equals one service credit.
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Fictional currency is currency in works of fiction. It is often invented, bearing little or no resemblance to any modern or historic currency. This is a necessary plot device, in order to increment the completeness of the environment, and at the same time dissociate it from any
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"Mints" redirects here. For other uses, see Mint (disambiguation).

A mint is a place or facility which manufactures coins for currency.

On the whole, the history of mints correlates very closely with the history of coins.
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Coining is a form of precision stamping. It differs from simple stamping in that enough pressure is used to cause plastic flow of the surface of the material. A beneficial feature is that in some materials, such as phosphor bronze, the plastic flow breaks up the surface
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In numismatics, the term milled coinage (also known as machine-struck coinage) is used to describe coins which are produced by some form of machine, rather than by manually hammering coin blanks between two dies (hammered coinage) or casting coins from dies.
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Hammered coinage describes the commonest form of coins produced since the invention of coins in the first millennium BC until the early modern period of ca. the 15th-17th centuries.
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A credit card is a system of payment named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. A credit card is different from a debit card in that it does not remove money from the user's account after every transaction.
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A medal is a small metal object, usually engraved with insignia, that is awarded to a person for athletic, military, scientific, academic or some other kind of achievement. There also exist devotional medals, worn to indicate religious faith.
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token coins or tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia. Tokens are used in place of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape.
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Notaphily is the study of paper money or banknotes. A notaphilist is a collector of banknotes, paper money, paper currency or plastic notes.

History

It is believed that people have been collecting paper money for as long as it has been in use.
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Scripophily is the study and collection of stocks and bonds. A specialized field of numismatics, scripophily is an interesting area of collecting due to both the inherent beauty of some historical documents as well as the interesting historical context of each document.
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In financial markets, the stock capital of a corporation or a joint-stock company is the capital raised through the issuance, sale and distribution of shares. A person or organization that holds at least a partial share of stock is called a shareholder.
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bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and is obliged to repay the principal and interest (the coupon) at a later date, termed maturity.
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COIN can refer to:

Collaborative Innovation Networks
Counterinsurgency
Coin

This article is about monetary coins.

..... Click the link for more information.

Elongated coins are coins that have been flattened, stretched and imprinted with a new design with the purpose of creating a commemorative or souvenir token. The collecting of elongated coins is a branch of numismatics. Elongated coins can also be categorized as exonumia.
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For the record label, see .

In the United States, wooden nickels are wood token coins, which are usually issued by a merchant or bank as a promotion, sometimes redeemable for a specific item such as a drink.
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Legal tender or forced tender is payment that, by law, cannot be refused in settlement of a debt denominated in the same currency.

Legal tender is a status which may be conferred on certain examples of money, which may depend on circumstances including the amount of
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Exonumia

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Sources and references

History