So-called "Abolitionist coinage" was also in circulation in the North,
recovered from the "PSA 4 Site" (Grossman, et al.) in Lower Manhattan during
the "War between the States." Apparently, the intent was to cause "pause" to
reflect while in the transaction of money for goods and services to the
plight of those enslaved. I suppose it also serve a certain "nuisance value"
in that you always had to check your change carefully to see if you were
receiving it or carrying it. New York was always a place of alternative
coinage however, and maybe that coinage was competing with so-called "bar
tokens." The few pieces found there, in a large unmortared cistern under a
tailors shop, were not pierced, if my memory serves me.

George Myers