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GREECE: Advertising Tokens, shell card token, ca. 1900, choice XF

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins - Europe Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:200.00 - 250.00 USD
GREECE: Advertising Tokens, shell card token, ca. 1900, choice XF
SOLD
190.00USD+ buyer's premium (38.00)
This item SOLD at 2024 Sep 20 @ 11:27UTC-07:00 : PDT/MST
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GREECE: Advertising Tokens, shell card token, ca. 1900, TC-240144, 38mm, Hotel de la Grande Bretagne, E. Lampsa, Athens // the reverse copies an obverse of the silver 5 drachmai of King Giorgi dated 1900, choice XF, RRR, ex SARC Auction 22, Lot 1500. Shell cards were made by a process very different from striking coins. The design is pressed outward on thin metal sheets, resulting in a lovely yet fragile product. Some cards used two of these thin "shells" joined at the edge, while others used a single shell filled with sturdy cardboard on which an advertisement was printed. None of these cards are common.The Hotel Grande Bretagne still exists today. The original structure was built during 1842 as a house for Antonis Dimitriou, a wealthy Greek businessman from the island of Lemnos, twelve years after independence of Greece from the Ottoman Empire. In 1874, it was bought by Efstathios Lampsas, who restored it with an 800,000 drachmai loan and named it "Grande Bretagne."During the Greco-Italian War and the Battle of Greece in 1940-41, the hotel housed the Greek General Headquarters. During the Axis occupation, the hotel served as Nazi headquarters. When the Axis withdrew from Greece, in 1944, British forces made it their headquarters.