Brass Bunny Tokens

Personal tokens in a nifty wallet

April 2009

Explanation

In the SCA, my "arms" are described as, "Fieldless, on a hexagon Or a rabbit's head cabossed sable". That's a fancy way of saying "A black bunny's head on a gold hexagon". That's a cute way of creating a "Honey Bunny" image. It's suitably Japanese, yet it can be expressed in Western terms, so I think it should be a good SCA badge. So far it's passed the Kingdom Heralds, maybe by Pennsic I'll be able to use it without worrying.

Another tradition is for artists and craftspeople to put items on display at events so others can see what kinds of things people are doing. Sometimes, this display is part of a judged competition, but sometimes it is simply a non-competitive display. In most cases, viewers will often leave "tokens" at displays they particularly enjoy. This is just meant as a "tip o' the hat" to the artisan for a work well executed.

So these are my new tokens. I've painted black bunny heads on nine brass hexagons, and attached short lengths of braid to each. The braid is an 8-strand Edo Yatsu braid with a nice "interlocking E" pattern in black and yellow cotton. The bunny was simply stencilled onto 1 inch wide brass strip, which I then cut into hexagons and drilled for the cord.

I also made a cloth "wallet" to hold the tokens, each in its own little pocket.

If you're an artisan or craftsperson in the SCA, and if I leave one of these tokens at one of your displays, please consider it an invitation to hunt me out at some point and talk to me about your work.