1896 Bryan Money Teno Cento Schornstein SCH-345 White Metal

An 1896 piece of Bryan money, cataloged as Schornstein 345. Bryan money is the collective name for the pieces struck around William Jennings Bryan's 1896 campaign for free coinage of silver at sixteen to one. After the Cross of Gold speech carried him to the Democratic nomination at Chicago, sound money men answered with oversized dollars that showed, in metal, how much silver a dollar would actually have to contain at the market price. The argument was made by size: many of these pieces dwarf a silver dollar, and they were meant to. Jewelers, silversmiths and metal firms produced them, most in 1896 with a smaller wave for the rerun in 1900. Fred Schornstein's reference is the standard numbering for the series, and the pieces trade by his numbers. Ex J. Doyle DeWitt. DeWitt built the reference collection of American political material, some seventy thousand pieces, while rising from claims investigator to president of the Travelers Insurance Company, and campaign satire of this kind sat alongside the medalets in his cabinet. Graded Mint State in hand. Offered raw, without certification. This is the Teno Cento variety, Zerbe 46. TENO CENTO sits in a wreath within FREE SILVER, THE BRYAN IDEA, and the other side reads BRYAN'S IDEA OF COINAGE. The mangled denomination is the joke: a currency the maker thought was not worth spelling correctly. Circulated, with attractive original surfaces.