An interesting Danish token

[brandm24]

This is a corset:
https://www.amazon.com/Charmian-Womens-Cotton-Hourglass-XXXX-Large/dp/B00NMNBPV0/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=corsets+for+women&qid=1600256213&sr=8-2

I cannot think it means anything else, in Danish you would normall spell it with a K, but C is also allowed, so it was a lingerie (undertoej) shop for Ladies.

In reply #1 Peter had hinted at that also, but I think the correct determination was reached by FosseWay and eurocoin. Though an odd thing to counterstamp on a coin, I've seen stranger. Perhaps both will weigh in on your comments.

Many thanks for your input, Globetrotter.

Bruce

[FosseWay]

It rather depends what the Corsethuset mentioned in the source used by Brunk and others - the one at Østergade 29 - actually was.

Another possibility links both the Østergade 29 and the toilet door hypotheses. There was evidently a business of some description called Corsethuset at that address. At the same time, Sømod mentions that the word "closet" as applied to toilets was seen as too vulgar for refined people and was replaced by a minced variant. Could it be that "closethuset" became "corsethuset" precisely because there was a known business by that name? A sort of in-joke for residents of Copenhagen?

[Globetrotter]

http://web.archive.org/web/20070806092907/http://www.numis.dk/artikler/Danske_reklame_kontramarkeringer.asp (link 1)

gives this name: Corset Huset.

Svensk 5 öre: 1875, 76, 78, 82, 84, 86, 87, 88, 91, 93,

95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 1900.

Norsk 5 øre: 1875, 76.

Indehaveren af dette firma, der havde 50 filialer i hele Norden, var Duzaine Hansen, Østergade 29, København. English: The owner of this firm, which had 50 outlets in Scandinavia, was Duzaine Hansen, Oestergade 29 in Copenhagen.

From this I came to this via Yahoo search:

www.coneliand.dk/Danmarks aeldste forretninger/DAEF100...

Duzaine-Hansen A/S, specialforretning i kor­setter en gros og en detail. Grundl. d. 16. jan. 1883 af P. Duzaine Hansen (f. 16. juni 1857 i Løgstør, d. 1924). Forretningen startede under meget beskedne former på Østergade nr. 45, med stifterens hu­stru som eneste ekspeditrice. I 1897 flyttede den til større lokaler på Østergade nr. 29 ...

English: Duzaine-Hansen (joint stock company), special store in corsets en gros and detail. Founded on 16th of January, 1883, by P. Duzaine-Hansen (born 16th June in the town Loegstoer, died in 1924). The shop started small i Oestergade 45, with the owner's wife as only employee. In 1897 the store move to a bigger place in Oestergade 29....

When searching for the owner's name and jeton, I don't get any hits.

[Figleaf]

So know we have two conflicting stories. For background, both Jørgen Sømod and Peter Flensborg were well-known and respected Danish numismatists with a long list of publications to their name.

Flensborg's story has some advantages. Corset Huset actually existed and was successful in the timeframe of the host coins. An advertising campaign à la Pears' soap is credible. It also leaves a major question. Why only 5 øre coins? Unlike in France and Italy, where 1 and 2 centesimi/centimes coins were hard to find and 10 and 5 centimes was the rough equivalent of a penny and a halfpenny but 1 and 2 centimes/centesimi didn't fit in, 1 and 2 øre coins were in full use during my first visit to Denmark in 1956. An advertising campaign could have been much cheaper by also using the lower values.

The Sømod story needs an awkward deus-ex-machina to turn Closet Huset into Corset Huset, but it has non-numismatic witness support and it explains neatly why only 5 øre coins were used.

So for the moment, the question boils down to: was 5 øre a reasonable price for a visit to a toilet around 1900? Here is a hint. The equivalent of 5 øre in 1900 today is 3.57 kroner or about € 0.48, or USD 0.57. That's credible to me.

Peter

[Globetrotter]

We have THREE, I think,

one from Soemod (RIP), one from Flensburg and one about a crafty business man with 50 filials of shops all over Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and he might have used counterstamped 5 oere coins for his at least 50 toilets in Scandinavia. The only thinge is that he never used a Danish 5 oere coin for the toilets outside Denmark? Where is the logic to that.

A part from that, I'll let you think about that, but the price for a toilet visit in those days I simply don't believe were that high, but maybe the customers came for a clean toilet and not a corset

[FosseWay]

I read somewhere very recently in another context that the exchange rate between the Scandinavian Monetary Union and the Latin ditto was about 0.72 : 1. In other words, in round figures, 5 öre was the equivalent of 7 French etc. centimes. Alongside that, we know that LMU 5c and 10c coins circulated for a while in the UK as halfpennies and pennies, implying that 5c was roughly equivalent to a halfpenny.

As anyone with any knowledge of English idiom from my grandparents' generation will instantly recognise, to "spend a penny" you had to, er, spend a penny, which if the exchange rates were fixed three ways (I know they weren't, but as a first order approximation it'll do) would have been the equivalent of more than 5 öre but less than 10.

The size of the coins gives it away as well - the 5 öre, 10 centimes and 1 penny coins all must have played a similar financial, social and cultural role in their respective societies.

So 5 öre for a toilet visit seems reasonable compared to the going rate in London at the same time. (BTW Peter, the going rate for public loos here now is 10 kronor, or 1 euro give or take!)

[Figleaf]

Yes, comparing prices in time and place is tricky, as price inflation may be quite different from wage inflation and I suspect that was the case both in the UK and in Denmark in the period 1900-2020. That's why I called it a hint.

In view of the drinking habits in Scandinavian countries, I am not surprised that peeing is more expensive there.

Peter

[brandm24]

This really turned into an interesting discussion and I thank you all for your input.

I decided to re-check the Brunk reference to see if I'd missed anything. I did.

Prior to the two entries for Corset-Huset (C-944 / C-945) there is another for 2 Norwegian 5 Ore and 2 Swedish 5 Ore coins counterstamped "CLOSET-HUSET" (C-610) The four coins are dated 1876, 1896 (2) qnd 1901. BTW, the two entries for Corset-Huset include one with a hyphen and the other without. A minor variety maybe but still an indication that a fair number of coins must have been stamped to require at least a minumun of two dies.

Maybe the prescence of a known Closet-Huset issue is of no significance, but I can't help but wonder. Brunk doesn't include an image as he's probably never seen an example. I'm going to look for one myself as a comparrison to the style of the other might be interesting.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

That's a link between Closet-huset and Corset-huset, making the Sømod story more credible. How reliable is Brunk, in particular for stuff he hasn't seen?

Peter

[Globetrotter]

Peter,

Why do you insist? It was a lingerie shop spread all over Scandinavia.....

Ole

[Figleaf]

I am insisting only on finding out which of the stories is correct. I don't care which one it is. See my post of 16th September above, where in my eyes the problem with the Sømod story is the Closet - Corset connection, while the problem with the Flensborg story is the use of one denomination only. Now, brandm24 comes up with new information that looks like it removes the Sømod problem, while it maintains the Flensborg problem, making the Sømod story more credible.

I don't doubt the chain existed, but that's not evidence but a sine qua non. I once had a token with initials CM. I took that to be "Cercle Militaire". They existed. Nevertheless, it turned out that CM stood for "Casino Municipal". Too bad. I would have liked "Casino de Monaco" better.

Peter

[FosseWay]

As I said above, it could be both.

[brandm24]

That's a link between Closet-huset and Corset-huset, making the Sømod story more credible. How reliable is Brunk, in particular for stuff he hasn't seen?

Peter

Greg Brunk is thorough and will dismiss anything that he thinks may be incorrect or will at least add a disclaimer. He can be careful to a fault as I found out more than once. A good trait for a numismatic author but frustrating to the extreme at times. He sometimes doesn't see things the way that you do. But his name's on the cover of the book so he wins

In short he's highly intelligent, thorough, and dedicated to finding the truth.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

Thank you Bruce. Gregs are good.

@Fosseway, yes, it could be a pun. It might have been a pun before the punching, even. Sømod has a witness for his story, though and the witness implies the punches were not made by Corsethuset (which doesn't mean that the joke was not on them) and he states they were used in many places (which doesn't exclude Corsethuset), so it wasn't "their" token in any sense.

I am intrigued by you writing Closethuset as one word and Brunk stating that on at least one token it was hyphened CLOSET-HUSET while the word was broken off on Corset huset (note capitalisation) punches. Is that meaningful in any way?

Peter

[Globetrotter]

Danish is like German, we accumulate nouns without end......