George Washington Spielmarke Exonumia (1860)

Set Description
Spielmarken have been used as game counters and card counters, essentially the poker chip of years gone by. Most of these in this collection are from the dies of Christian Lauer and based on the engraving of George Washington by George Jakob Felsing. This particular engraving was from 1824 and based on an earlier portrait by his teacher Guiseppe Longhi. See the first two selections below for more information about Felsing, Longhi and their work.

These game counters began to appear in auction in 1860, although Neil Musante writes that they were produced before and after this date.

On these game counters are several words that need further explanation.
Spiel Marke translates from German as game chip
Spiel Munze translates from German as game coin
In Unitate Fortudo translates from Latin as Strength in Unity

Other common themes from this series includes the liberty head or German Imperial eagle with or without a shield on the reverse. There are a couple of store cards for Strassburger & Nuhn and George Doll & Company.

Set Goals
Collecting a set of game counters from Neil Musante’s Medallic Washington which are attributed to Ludwig Christian Lauer (1817-1873).

According to Glasgow Museums*, Christian Lauer "was a leading 19th-century German manufacturer of medals, tokens, play money and related products... a medal maker in Nuremberg, Germany. He began his business in 1848. He expanded his business and in 1860 renamed it ‘coin mint L. Chr. Lauer’. He died in 1873 and the company continued under the supervision of his wife and three sons."

*http://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/mwebcgi/mweb?request=record;id=73442;type=701