Good Luck Charm

A copper-alloy uniface good luck charm. Hexagonal, pierced at the top with suspension link in situ. Decorated with a swastika (alternative names - flyfot; gammadion), within a circle and surrounded by the legend, "Good For Two Years Good Luck".

Date Range:Circa 1930

Primary Material:Copper alloy

Method of Manufacture:Die-stamped

Collectors have identified more than 1,400 different swastika design coins, souvenir or merchant/trade tokens and watch fobs, distributed by mostly local retail and service businesses in the United States. The tokens that can be dated range from 1885 to 1939, with a few later exceptions. About 57 percent have the swastika symbol facing to the left, 43 percent to the right. Most promise good luck or feature other symbols such as a horseshoe, four leaf clover, rabbit's foot, wishbone or keys.

According to one collector: "Swastika tokens have nothing to do with Herr Hitler and his ill-fated Third Reich. The swastika is an ancient symbol of good luck adopted and promoted by advertising token salesmen during the first quarter of the 20th century in the U.S. The swastika is found together with other symbols of good luck in stock reverses on many merchant tokens and commemorative medals such as used to celebrate the 1932 Washington's birthday centennial."

In 1925, Coca-Cola made a lucky watch fob in the shape of a swastika with right-facing arms and the slogan, "Drink Coca Cola five cents in bottles". The Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company of Waterloo, Iowa offered a "Good Luck" token featuring a left facing swastika in addition to a four-leaf clover, horseshoe, wishbone and Plains Indian emblem. The company was sold in 1918 and became known as the John Deere Tractor Company. Harvard University Library has a 1908 leather watch fob with a brass swastika that was created for the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan.

The 1917 World War I good luck medal was produced in the United States with an American eagle superimposed by a four-leaf clover and a Swastika, an ancient symbol of good luck. The medal was designed by Adam Pietz, who served as Assistant Engraver at the United States Mint in Philadelphia for nearly 20 years. "Today this golden bronze medal is very rare, in part because so many of the Doughboys marching off to the trenches of Eastern Europe lost their lives and their good luck medals on the battlefields."

Some Boy Scout good luck tokens issued by the Excelsior Shoe company feature the swastika on the reverse.