Indecision 2016 | Cincinnati Metal Stamping Companies

The Presidential campaigns of 1860 and 2016: We’ve seen this before. (Really, we have.) In 1860, Abraham Lincoln defeated Stephen A. Douglas for the Presidency of the United States after a long and contentious campaign. This followed on the heels of Douglas defeating Lincoln for the Illinois Senate seat in 1858. We’re pretty sure after campaigning against each other for years that they weren’t the best of friends.
The decisions that the two political parties face today are somewhat similar to those of 1860. Some of the issues revolve around the treatment and acceptance of a specific groups of people, the future of the country, future of their parties, etc., etc. The candidates back then traded so many political barbs and accusations through their 8 debates that it became a diffcult decision for the voters to fully know who stood for what on the issues of the day. Sound familiar?

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To us, the real similarity of the Presidential race of 1860 and 2016 lies not in the issues but in the name of our company’s founder, John Stanton. Records show that before Mr. Stanton started Long-Stanton Manufacturing in 1862, he owned a company in Cincinnati that provided the illustrations, made the stamping die and minted the campaign coins of the 1860 presidential candidates.

The separate coins, shown here, contained the etched, illustrated likeness of each candidate (notice Lincoln without a beard) that were handed out to voters asking for their support. We can only guess that the medals would be considered the Social Media “Like” button of its day.

Today, we honor John Stanton’s legacy by minting our “Indecision 2016” campaign coin. Only this time we feature on one side of the coin an illustrated likeness of the Republican nominee Donald Trump and the same treatment for the Democratic challenger, Hilliary Clinton, on the other side.

And like the 1860 presidential race, we can sense that the political barbs and accusations are once again confusing all but their most die-hard supporters. Hopefully, our “Indecision 2016” coin will help you enjoy making your decision. Or indecision. Sometimes it really does feel like it come down to just a flip of a coin. Once again, we are pretty confident that these two candidates, like those in 1860, don’t like each other.

Please, don’t take this coin into the voting booth. It could be distracting to those who have already made up their mind (or they may ask to borrow it). We like to think that John Stanton would smile at the irony or similarity of the campaigns and our candidates coin. History really does seem to find a way of repeating itself.

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