In Electronicast We Trust...

[Ric-san]

Howdy all again, third post today about coins/tokens...more good stuff here. The story on these tokens is as follows... My Father retired from a company called 'Escast', he worked there for FORTY years. Talk about loyalty. A great guy my Dad, the hardest working man I have ever known. When I was a kid back in the 70's during the oil embargo and hard times, he worked three jobs to keep the family going. Anyway, right as he was retiring at age 70, his company moved to Mexico; lock, stock and barrel. can you say "Thank you NAFTA...?" The irony is that my Dad emigrated from Mexico as a teenager when our borders were open to migrant workers. Yep he worked his way up from the fields of Texas to the might of the Industrial North (Chicago). Even though my Dad's side of the family still resides in Mexico, he has chosen to stay here. Anyway...The tokens are neat, at Escast I think they made investment castings for other companies and products. Now they go by the name Fansteel Escast, not too much info on the web... I like the tokens, someone had a sense of humor, not too sure what the T.I.O.T is for or the chinese dog, but it is cool... Not too sure of the 1949, maybe their inception date as a company...? Enjoy. Info provided just in case you stumble on one of these...

[Dugday]

Very neat token

[Buster]

Rick, very cool story and great token...Buster.....

[EBCIII]

That is a very cool token! It is so unique, and just neat! Thanks for sharing it with us, Beale.

[schoser]

cool token! lots of good, hard-working people come from Mexico and i see your father was one of them!

[EPC Guy]

I like the tokens!

['E']

Rick, I love tokens & that one is really kewl.

[Ric-san]

Having these tokens for so long and finding them now, over thirty years from when my Dad gave them to me, the internet is a valued friend...here is what I found, as to the word 'toit' and the she-sha dog, the word shang and 1629 bc.....

"Although there is uncertainty as to when metallurgy began in China, there is reason to believe that early bronzeworking developed autonomously, independent of outside influences. The era of the Shang and the Zhou dynasties is generally known as the Bronze Age of China, because bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, used to fashion weapons, parts of chariots, and ritual vessels, played an important role in the material culture of the time. Iron appeared in China toward the end of the period, during the Eastern Zhou dynasty.
The earliest Chinese bronzes were made by the method known as piece-mold casting—as opposed to the lost-wax method, which was used in all other Bronze Age cultures. In piece-mold casting, a model is made of the object to be cast, and a clay mold taken of the model. The mold is then cut in sections to release the model, and the sections are reassembled after firing to form the mold for casting. If the object to be cast is a vessel, a core has to be placed inside the mold to provide the vessel's cavity. The piece-mold method was most likely the only one used in China until at least the end of the Shang dynasty. An advantage of this rather cumbersome way of casting bronze was that the decorative patterns could be carved or stamped directly on the inner surface of the mold before it was fired. This technique enabled the bronzeworker to achieve a high degree of sharpness and definition in even the most intricate designs.
One of the most distinctive and characteristic images decorating Shang-dynasty bronze vessels is the so-called taotie. The primary attribute of this frontal animal-like mask is a prominent pair of eyes, often protruding in high relief. Between the eyes is a nose, often with nostrils at the base. Taotie can also include jaws and fangs, horns, ears, and eyebrows. Many versions include a split animal-like body with legs and tail, each flank shown in profile on either side of the mask. While following a general form, the appearance and specific components of taotie masks varied by period and place of production. Other common motifs for Shang ritual bronze vessels were dragons, birds, bovine creatures, and a variety of geometric patterns. Currently, the significance of the taotie, as well as the other decorative motifs, in Shang society is unknown.

Wow. lots of info there...found at this site: Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China | Thematic Essay | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Enjoy and hope we all learned something today...I sure did...!

[sburhani]

That really is an amazing piece of information. I had come across one of these in an old collection of mine, and did not have the presence of mind to check on it at the time. I brought out the bag again and was going through them and decided to do some research. Would have never thought it was a token :)

That being said, I wonder if there is any real value to the piece, be it to a collector or in dollars and cents. Anyone have any idea?

[LeoinPA]

Hey Ric-san

With one of those you're not allowed to put it off until you get "a round toit". Now you have one.

Thanks
Leo