"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On 5/21/2010 7:37 PM, Eric Babula wrote:
Anyway I found a bunch of RCC tokens in my desk draw the other
day. From 2002 through 2004
I can find very little info on the net about their popularity. Are

I don't think these have much market value, and you don't see them for
sale at all on eBay, or hardly at all. I followed only the first such
token. The process of choosing it was fairly schizoid. I have one of these
as a curiosity, and here's what I have at my site about it (long):

RCC 2002 bronze token (32.1g, 40mm).

This odd-looking token, consisting of bronze with an antique brass finish,
was made for rec.collecting.coins (RCC), a Usenet discussion group about
coins, with this being the group's first such token. It was made by
Quality Challenge Coins, which produced 121 pieces of this type, and the
project was spearheaded by George V. Huse Jr., a participant in the
discussion group. The circumstances behind the minting of this token,
which I witnessed firsthand, present an interesting example of the issue
of Internet misinformation.

Unlike the vast majority of other medals and tokens inspired by ancient
Athenian Owl coins, this piece isn't based on the famous Classical Owls of
the fifth century BC but the less important New Style Owls of the second
and first centuries BC. However, as opposed to the actual ancient coins,
Athena is facing left on this token rather than right because Huse was led
to believe that if this copy had been made with a right-facing Athena it
might be regarded as a forgery or might be modified and sold as an
authentic ancient coin. This is despite the fact that this token is
considerably larger and heavier than ancient coins of this type, that it's
made of a copper alloy whereas the ancient tetradrachms were made of
silver (ancient bronzes of this type exist but they're even smaller and
are seen far less), that it was manufactured with a modern press and has a
perfectly round shape, flat fields, and uniform rims and other design
elements as opposed to the irregularity of ancient hand-struck coins, and
that it features modern Latin lettering and Arabic numbering, which no
ancient Greek coins had because such lettering and numbering hadn't yet
come into existence.

What's more, the model used for this token wasn't a genuine New Style Owl
because some RCC participants convinced Huse that using a photo from a
coin book for design guidance could result in a copyright violation. For
some reason no genuine specimens of this common coin type were available
for a scan or photo and no attempt was made to ask for the use of anyone's
existing photo. So instead a Slavey replica of a New Style Owl tetradrachm
was purchased and a scan of it was made and sent to the minter even though
Slavey replicas have a reputation at least among those who know ancient
coins for their flamboyant exaggeration.

Unlike with genuine New Style Owls, which feature Athena with a pleasant
smile or neutral expression, Athena on this piece has an unpleasant scowl.
Another anomaly is the obverse legend "Pallas Athene," which never
appeared on ancient coins of this type and which misdescribes the Athena
that's illustrated. Pallas is one of the many epithets sometimes used as
part of Athena's name, in this case signifying an opponent she killed in
battle whose name she took. But the epithet used with Athena on New Style
Owls in coin books and coin catalogs is Parthenos, not Pallas, as in
Athena Parthenos, since the image used on these coins is thought to have
been based on the sculpture of Athena by Phidias that stood in the
Parthenon. What's more, Athena is much more commonly spelled with an "a"
at the end, "Athena" instead of "Athene," in books on numismatics as well
as mythology, not to mention being better known this way in the popular
culture. Two further anomalies are an owl that's smaller than on authentic
New Style Owls and a wreath around the coin's edge that's larger, with the
wreath taking up far more space even though the owl by far is the more
important design element.


Er....... he simply asked if these were still collected by rcc members and
what their value might be. Gogu gave him a pretty good idea in a single
sentence.