Token US (Calontir) Hildegard Follis

Requester Ryan has a token from the Kingdom of Calontir, as seen explicitly in the legend on the side with the decorated cross. Calontir corresponds to the modern US states of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and northern Arkansas, as defined by the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA), the largest player in the world of medieval re-enactment.

In the Middle Ages, it was common for kingdoms to mint royal gold and silver coins and franchise out the right to mint 'small money' such as copper coins. In modern times, some SCA kingdoms grant charters to educational branches, and it was the University of St. Hildegard (USH) in south central Washington State which first produced tokens for commerce. The original tokens bore the profile of Jarl Barak Ravensfury, the King who chartered USH. Eventually some 42 different USH tokens were minted.

The USH tokens became very popular. They traded at the rate of one US dollar each at events throughout the SCA and at major Renaissance Fairs in the Pacific Northwest. At some of the larger events, as many as 15,000 tokens would be in circulation as people used them for all sorts of monetary purposes. A key difference between USH tokens and most of today's novelty tokens is that USH tokens were widely used in actual trade from event to event over large areas.

Alas, during the 2000s, the value of the US dollar fell to the point where the cost of producing hand-struck pure copper tokens exceeded their generally accepted trading value of one dollar each. By 2005, USH tokens passed from commerce to collectibles, and, as such, their value rose above one dollar each. The 2011 edition of Unusual World Coins has values for Calontir USH tokens, and CoinQuest has developed estimates based on this information as follows:

CALONTIR FOLLIS
worn: $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $5
well preserved: $10
fully uncirculated: $15

CoinQuest thanks Windward for the wonderful information on this page. Windward is a non-profit research cooperative dedicated to researching and demonstrating village-scale sustainable ways to feed, fuel, clothe, and house people on marginal land. The connection with medieval re-enactment grew out of Windward's desire to learn how people met their basic needs during the thousand years that lay between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance.
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