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Mint Drop Token 1837 - "Bentonian Currency"
was hard money as opposed to paper. The crash of 1837 and the Hard Times which
followed were by no means solely due as the Wing leaders would have it believed--to
the overthrow of their policy and the "mint drops" or hard money
of Jackson and Van Buren: they were only the culmination of evils which had
long been threatening disaster.
The Panic of 1837 resulted in hoarding of coins in circulation. The withdrawal
of public funds from the banks led to a contraction of the currency and
great changes in apparent values, which were the apparent causes of "Hard
Times." To fill the need for small change in circulation, a wide variety
of copper tokens appeared in 1837.
Source: Standard Catalog of United States Tokens by Russell
Rulau