Carol P. writes: I have a coin a 1926 sesquil. On one side it has the liberty bell with 1776-1926 on one side,on the other side is a ship with Treasure Island Doubloon printed on it. I have tried to locate information on it in many books via the library but I have been unable to locate any information on this coin. Any information including it’s value would be appreciated.
What you have is a Mardi Gras token. These tokens, usually minted in brass, aluminum or white metal are tossed off the floats to parade viewers during the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Each float crew have their own token design, sometimes borrowed from real coins. In this case, the Liberty Bell design was borrowed from the 1926 United States Commemorative half dollar, Sesquicentennial of American Independence.
Note if your token is minted in silver, it is one of the presentation pieces awarded to each of the crew on that particular float. The crew works all year to build the float that will be in the following year’s parade.
