One of the benefits of collecting exonumia from my region isthe ability to get to the source of the matter, so to speak. Onesuch opportunity was recently afforded to me thanks to DaveSchenkman. At the February Nummis Nova dinner, Dave gave me atoken of recent manufacture from O'Hurley's General Storein Shepherdstown, WV. The token, good for 1.00, was in a stylethat did not resemble anything from a major token maker butrather looked locally produced.

Seeing as I work near Shepherdstown, on a lunch break, I droveover to O'Hurley's General Store to see if I could uncover thestory behind the token. Sure enough, I talked to the owner of thestore, Jay Hurley, who also happened to be the gentleman who madethe tokens. When I first asked about them, he asked if I came tospend it. Considering my interest in tokens and how they wereused, this provided me a rare chance to have such a discussionwith a token maker as well as issuer.

The story he told me is that about 15 or so years ago, he anda local blacksmith had some scrap brass leftover from a recentmetalworking job. They commented to each other that the metallooked very close to gold and that they should make some "goldcoins" of their own.

The blacksmith cut the dies by hand and they modified a steelpress/punch to strike the tokens. He said they struck one batchof about a hundred tokens. Hurley still has the dies but theywere buried in a cabinet in the back and couldn't get to themeasily when I visited.

The tokens were good for 1.00 and Hurley used to hand them outevery once in a while. Such stories about similar tokens from thepast are now lost forever, so I particularly value the chance torecord these tales.