English: When U.S. cents were in short supply tokens were issued by third parties to take their place. These were widely accepted as though they were U.S. cents and thus kept commerce going during difficult economic times, thus they were called "hard times" tokens. Because some, such as this one, so closely resembled the then standard large U.S. cents the phrase "not once cent" was placed on the reverse to distinguish them. This phrase was combined with other wording on the reverse to make a political statement such as "millions for defence not one cent for tribute" or "millions for defence not one cent for the widows". Other tokens issued around the same time bore very little resemblance to U.S. Cents and so the phrase "not one cent" wasn't needed so they made other political statements or simply advertised products and services.

Later, when the tokens were no longer needed or widely accepted some desperate individuals would sometimes file or chisel the "not" off the token so it would look more like a U.S. Cent and could be passed off as such. Such mutilated examples have less value for purists but they have added historical value as evidence of fraud committed many years ago by a person who is long since dead.