‘This is pretty special’: Maryland explorer unearths America 150 anniversary trade coin on Butler farm

Evan Woodard has been “metal detecting” on his friends’ family farm in Butler since 2023, scouring the roughly 200 acres for historical finds that could reveal more about their and Maryland’s history.

Drenched in sweat and shaded by pine trees after only an hour of metal detecting one recent Sunday, he came across what’s become his favorite find thus far: a trade token from a defunct Baltimore company that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing.

The copper, 1 3/8-inch coin features the Battle Monument on Calvert Street that honors War of 1812 soldiers and citizens on its face and the city’s Washington Monument with the American Wholesale Corp.’s logo and slogan on its tail.

“I saw the dates of 1776 and 1926, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is pretty special,’” recalled Woodard, 39. “To find something exactly 100 years after it was made and then to coincide with the 250th anniversary, it’s pretty awesome.”

The company began as the Baltimore Bargain House, a small sales shop on Barre Street opened in 1881 by Jacob Epstein, a European immigrant, according to his obituary in The Baltimore Sun. Over 12 years, the business morphed into a wholesale and general merchandise distributor for Southern businesses with an annual output of about $48 million, the newspaper said.

It became the American Wholesale Corp. and went public in 1919, newspaper archives show. Records from the Maryland Center for History and Culture say the American Wholesale Corp. was sold in 1929.

Andrew E. Graber, a local coin dealer, described the American Wholesale Corp. as the Walmart of its time. Companies like it commonly distributed trade tokens to promote shopping in their stores, he said.

Because the American Wholesale Corp. used a private company to mint these coins, the exact number created is unknown, but Graber presumes there were quite a few considering they were a means of advertising. In addition to benefiting the store’s bottom line, the coins showed patriotism, Graber said.

“Back then, patriotism was a lot bigger than it is today. And things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, all those different things — those all had a higher value overall in society,” he said.

Graber said he knows of three other companies that created commemorative trade tokens for the 150th anniversary of U.S. independence. The U.S. Mint issued its own coin, a half-dollar, in honor of 150 years of U.S. independence in 1926.

The Sesquicentennial of American Independence half-dollar featured the portraits of George Washington, the first U.S. president, and then-President Calvin Coolidge on its face and the Liberty Bell on the flip side. The U.S. Mint said this was the first time a U.S. president’s portrait appeared on a coin while he was still alive.

The 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence has been marked by celebrations across the country this year, including in Maryland. They include Sail250 Maryland & Airshow Baltimore, where tall ships from dozens of countries docked in the Inner Harbor for public tours, with air shows featuring the Blue Angels and other units.

The U.S. Mint also issued Gold Proof and Silver Proof dollar coins with different depictions of Lady Liberty, a bell with the number 250 engraved inside and 1776-2026 on its head and the American Eagle on its tail. The gold coin is going for $5,050, and the silver is being sold for $173.

The U.S. Mint has also produced a gold dollar coin with President Donald Trump’s portrait on the face and the presidential seal with 250 inscribed onto it on the tail. It’ll be available for purchase on Nov. 5, two days after Election Day.

The historic coins sell based on their condition and rarity, Graber said. By that metric, he said the American Wholesale Corp.’s America 150 commemorative trade token could go for $5 to $25 today.

The coin that Woodard found was rusted and had a hole in the top, he said, indicating that someone likely wore it as a necklace. He thinks that’s how they lost it, too.

Woodard, a Laurel native who resides in the Patterson Park neighborhood, has always been interested in history and exploration. His career as a cybersecurity professional taught him the research skills to do the community archaeology and Maryland history and tourism content creation that he does full-time now.

Under the name Salvage Arc, Woodard has scoured old maps for privies, or the trash areas of houses, in Baltimore’s oldest neighborhoods. He’s gone magnet fishing, using powerful magnets to scrape the bottom of the Inner Harbor for treasures — though mostly trash surfaced.

Woodard drives a red Toyota 4Runner with a ceiling lined with patches of maps for the places he’s driven to, including Ohio and Canada, and a license plate that reads SLVGARC.

When he drives the truck roughly 40 minutes out of the city to the farm in Butler, in northern Baltimore County, he targets areas near the home or pathways where people could have dropped something.

Old toy cars and signs, a logging chain for timber and a pocketknife were among his other finds after four hours of metal detecting the day he found the America 150 commemorative trade token.

It was in a spot he’d gone over plenty of times over the years, Woodard said. Finding it last month, he said, is just confirmation he’s walking the right path.

“It kind of lets me know that I’m doing the right thing when it comes to dedicating my life to saving history and telling the story of Baltimore and Maryland,” he said.