- Joined
- Feb 15, 2015
- Location
- New York, New York
Love tokens got there start over the pond in Britain in the early 19th century. The custom drifted across the sea, probably with immigration and picked up in popularity in the United States right before the Civil War. I imagine our ladies received these tokens from their sweethearts heading off into battle as a token to remember them by and were surely treasured by the women.
The token was created from a coin, most commonly used was the Liberty dime as it was silver and often was the most affordable to have transformed. The front of the coin would be flattened and then engraved by hand, usually with initials.
Below is an example of the Liberty dime with the most common design of interlocking initials. Often the initials were of your sweetheart or husband. The exception would be for men proposing and using the token as an engagement gift, who would then give a woman initials featuring the first letter of her first name and the first letter of his last as a way to ask her to change her name to his.
The most common love tokens of the time featured what’s known as ‘triple-overlapping initials’ similar to the one above, often in an interlocking pattern. Others were just of two initialed letters. Some believe that the widest letter usually represented the surname, while the tallest typically represented the first name, although experts say that these rules can vary depending on the artist and what worked best for the design.
Some tokens had holes drilled in the top so they could be worn on a chain; others were made into pins and often worn under a woman’s dress close to her heart as a way to keep her beloved close to her even though he was hundreds of miles from home.
If your sweetheart had enough money he’d use a gold coin and have it etched with a pretty scene. The gold example below has a hole bored into it with a bird – perhaps a dove or maybe even a carrier pigeon since it appears to be bearing a letter with initials on it.
Pictorial love tokens are sought after by collectors today. Many depict flowers, lighthouses, landscapes and of course hearts. These more elaborate engravings cost significantly more money than the simple initialed silver dimes since the etching was done by hand. Such scenes also conveyed messages, much the way flowers have meanings during the era. Ivy symbolized constancy, lighthouses stood for a safe harbor. Some love tokens even depicted musical instruments or tools that represented either a beloved’s talent or the sweetheart’s skill/trade.
Not all love tokens were for sweethearts and wives. Some were engraved with first names and could be from a parent or sibling.
Others were given as gifts to parents and other beloved family members and engraved with relationship terms like ‘mother’, ‘father’, or ‘aunt’. Below is a one beautifully inscribed one with mother on it.
During the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 there were booths churning out love tokens for young lovers attending the world’s fair together. After that boom the trend started to fade. It’s possible that it had a lot to do with the popularity of lockets that could then contain paper photographs of your sweetheart, which weren’t as affordable previously or just like any trendy item it may have seem dated to the younger generation and fell out of fashion.
You can still find vintage love tokens online at eBay and Etsy for reasonable prices. My sweetheart recently purchased me one for my birthday that I adore made with a Liberty dime from 1856.
The token was created from a coin, most commonly used was the Liberty dime as it was silver and often was the most affordable to have transformed. The front of the coin would be flattened and then engraved by hand, usually with initials.
Below is an example of the Liberty dime with the most common design of interlocking initials. Often the initials were of your sweetheart or husband. The exception would be for men proposing and using the token as an engagement gift, who would then give a woman initials featuring the first letter of her first name and the first letter of his last as a way to ask her to change her name to his.
The most common love tokens of the time featured what’s known as ‘triple-overlapping initials’ similar to the one above, often in an interlocking pattern. Others were just of two initialed letters. Some believe that the widest letter usually represented the surname, while the tallest typically represented the first name, although experts say that these rules can vary depending on the artist and what worked best for the design.
Some tokens had holes drilled in the top so they could be worn on a chain; others were made into pins and often worn under a woman’s dress close to her heart as a way to keep her beloved close to her even though he was hundreds of miles from home.
If your sweetheart had enough money he’d use a gold coin and have it etched with a pretty scene. The gold example below has a hole bored into it with a bird – perhaps a dove or maybe even a carrier pigeon since it appears to be bearing a letter with initials on it.
Pictorial love tokens are sought after by collectors today. Many depict flowers, lighthouses, landscapes and of course hearts. These more elaborate engravings cost significantly more money than the simple initialed silver dimes since the etching was done by hand. Such scenes also conveyed messages, much the way flowers have meanings during the era. Ivy symbolized constancy, lighthouses stood for a safe harbor. Some love tokens even depicted musical instruments or tools that represented either a beloved’s talent or the sweetheart’s skill/trade.
Not all love tokens were for sweethearts and wives. Some were engraved with first names and could be from a parent or sibling.
Others were given as gifts to parents and other beloved family members and engraved with relationship terms like ‘mother’, ‘father’, or ‘aunt’. Below is a one beautifully inscribed one with mother on it.
During the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 there were booths churning out love tokens for young lovers attending the world’s fair together. After that boom the trend started to fade. It’s possible that it had a lot to do with the popularity of lockets that could then contain paper photographs of your sweetheart, which weren’t as affordable previously or just like any trendy item it may have seem dated to the younger generation and fell out of fashion.
You can still find vintage love tokens online at eBay and Etsy for reasonable prices. My sweetheart recently purchased me one for my birthday that I adore made with a Liberty dime from 1856.
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