Depending on how old your Grandfather is, you may have found a strange coin tucked into all of his things. The only thing is, you have never seen a coin like this before and you are trying your best to figure out where it came from and what it is. Well, if you have tried to search and still came up with nothing, you might have found a Challenge Coin.
First, what is a challenge coin and why would your Grandfather have one in his things? The history of these challenge coins are not widely known, and the rules are even more complicated to understand if you don't know what these coins are. So, I'm going to break down what these coins are first and then we'll dive deeper into the history.
Challenge coins were often used as I.D back in the day. If you were involved with a certain group or organization, these challenge coins could be used to identify and confirm membership to this group or organization. More often than not, when you showed up to a meeting or a gathering you would be asked to pull out your challenge coin to confirm that you belong there. Anyone without a challenge coin would be sent away with no further information on what was going on.
While your grandfather could have a coin because he was a part of a group or organization that used this as a way of membership, the history of the coins date back to around WWII times. The Nazis and other groups would have a coin to identify if you were truly a part of their group or not, if you came up with a coin it would be inspected to every end and if your coin was valid, you could go in with no trouble. If your coin was not valid and it was a fake, you would face serious consequences.
Each group would have their own coins, the friend or the foe. If you had the wrong coin for the group you were trying to get into, it would be a bad day.
One of the best ways to research this coin to see if you can get a little more history on the matter is to look up the symbol on the coin that you have. If there is anything resembling it online, this is the place you can start. If nothing comes up for you, take it to a coin expert or a museum and maybe they can tell you when it was made and who could have created it.