I'm a coin collector, sent here from one of the coin discussion boards in hopes that someone might have some more info about the Rialto Base Ball club.
I got the attached coin several years ago. This is (was) a two-cent piece. Yes, the US made 2-cent coins, and 3-cent coins also. These 2-cent coins were struck from 1865-1872. The front of this coin was ground off and then engraved for the Rialto B.B.C., with a ball and crossed bats and several pennants. It has a lot of wear on the side with the engraving, so someone kept it in their pocket for a long time. It must have meant something to them.
Google has a few references to a very early black club with that name, organized in Detroit in the 1860s. [
1] [
2]. There are also a mentions to somewhat later clubs in Allentown, Pennsylvania (1907) [
3] and Washington, DC (1923-1925) [
5], [
6], [
7] and Seattle (1917) [
8]
I'd certainly love for this to be a piece of contemporary memorabilia for an 1860s black baseball club. It's a plus that the host coin is from the same period... or it could be just as likely that this coin was kicking around the back of someone's junk drawer and engraved much later.
So I have three questions that might or might not have answers...
Does anyone have a different or a better candidate for a Rialto Base Ball Club, beyond the ones I found?
The bottom of the engraved side of this piece has a P. C. in a border. Does anyone have a candidate for what that might possibly mean?
On the reverse of this piece, it looks like the T in CENTS has been intentionally removed. That leaves "2 CEN S"... which doesn't sound like anything to me. Does anyone have a candidate for what "2 CEN S" might mean, in a baseball context?
