Owner Comments:
Medal (Token), 1834, Cu, RUNNING BOAR HARD TIMES TOKEN, HT-9, DeWitt CE-1834-9, NGC AU58, Cert# 3607843-008. Obv. a boar running to the left, on its flank MY THIRD HEAT, above MY VICTORY, below DOWN WITH THE BANK, around PERISH CREDIT. PERISH COMMERCE. 1834 below; Rv: Small military bust of Jackson in upper center, MY on his chest, EXPERIMENT MY CURRENCY MY GLORY below, MY SUBSTITUTE FOR THE U.S. BANK around. Attractive. Ex Heritage 1/2014, Lot 10812. History: The 1834 "Running Boar" Hard Times Token.
Political discourse in the early 19th century was far more vitriolic than we have today for which this coin owes its origins. The huge fight between Jackson's Democratic party vs. the Federalists resulted in coins such as this one and in fact formed the root of the Republican party! Few presidential vetoes have caused as much controversy as the one Andrew Jackson sent to Congress on July 10, 1832. The veto of the bill to re-charter the United States Bank was the prelude to a conflict over fiscal policy that continued through Jackson's second term and climaxed during the mid-term elections of 1834. The controversy created the background for the issuance of clothing buttons, ribbons and a great many tokens by the Whig opposition. The first tokens appeared in city elections in New York, then later in state and congressional elections and represent some of the first examples of dirty politicking in America. J. Doyle DeWitt, in American Political Badges and Medals, writes: "Many of the political tokens...bore coarse and critical allusions to Jackson through the device of a hog and legends which continually repeated the word MY." (The Whigs accused Jackson of seeking dictatorial power by taking personal control of government assets.)