private party coin 1863

[ant]

what were they used for? where they accepted to pay taxxes?

 

 

[RI AL]

Hello, ant.

 

By strange coincidence, I was looking through my small collection of "Civil War Tokens" today...and by even stranger coincidence, I have the same piece. The scans below show a bit more detail than yours.

 

Around the time of the civil war, particularly by 1862, people started hording coins as a better guaranty of value over paper currency and metals were increasing in value. The result was a serious shortage of circulating coins, even 1 cent pieces. So...being most enterprising, many merchants/store owners started minting their own coins. These are called "Civil War Store Cards" and usually advertise in one fashion or another and assign a value (usually 1 cent). They were supposed to be used as money in the store/company mentioned on the token. MOST issuers honored their own tokens for purchases. At the hight of "store card" movement, it is estimated that some 25 million pieces in between 7000-8000 varieties were issued. Some are quite rare. Your store card is from Wilson's (I don't know what he sold in his business) and bears identification number 1271 in "United States Tokens 1700-1900" by Russell Rulau. It is a common token with a rarity of "1". and a value of maybe $4 or $5.

 

RI Al.

 

[ant]

here is a close up of a single star that got doubled. does yours show doubling on 3rd star botom right.

 

[RI AL]

Hey! Neat find!

 

No, my "Wilson's" piece does not have the doubled star. I wonder if there are any token experts out there somewhere that can help you to see if it is a "new find" or a known variety. This stuff is really fun when you get to studying coins closely!!

 

RI Al

 

 

[ant]

yes it is fun! that was the only star on the coin to show doubling. wonder if they are put on by hand.

[Conder101]

A great many of the dies used for the CWT's were created by hand punching and/or engraving. I don't have the Storecard book so I don't know if the Wilson rev was paired with more than one Washington obv die.

[RI AL]

Hey, Condor.

 

The "storecard" book...is that the Rulau United States Token Book? I checked there but only found 1 listing...but obviously there must be more than 1 pairing because my example doesn't have the doubled star. Maybe I should double check the book...(out comes the ^*(*%&(^** magnifying glass again!)

 

RI AL...

[BillJones]

A great many of the dies used for the CWT's were created by hand punching and/or engraving. I don't have the Storecard book so I don't know if the Wilson rev was paired with more than one Washington obv die.

 

The "Wilson's medal" variety is still listed as a patrotic variety so far as I know because no one has been able to figure out who "Wilson" was. If the name could be traced to a merchant, it would go into the Store Card book.

 

I think the token die was cut by Horter, who was a New York City die sinker. Chances are Wilson was a New Yorker.

 

There are two obverses that are known to have been paired with the Wilson reverse. They are 19, which is a liberty head variety, and 112, which is this Washington variety. I was not aware of the recut star on the Washington head die. I don't have one of these pieces right now to compare and look for it. The Wilson reverse is #396. It is common except for a couple of off-metal pieces.

[Conder101]

No, the Rulau book only covers a small fraction of all the CWT's. There are two books that attribute CWT's, one for the Patriotics and one for the store cards. The Storecard book is US Civil War Storecards by Fuld 2nd edition. At 650 Pages it runs between $85 and $100.

 

The patriotics book is Patriotic Civil War Tokens by Fuld 5th edition, 436 pages it cost $30 to $35.

 

Between the two books they cover around 10,000 different varieties.

[BillJones]

Yes, the Civil War section of the Rulau book was a MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT. I talked to a couple of the guys were given credit for helping on it, pointing some of the many problems with it. They couldn't tell me what happened to it.

[RI AL]

That's really interesting information!! There sure is a lot to this "civil war token" stuff. I have picked up a few in my wayward non-focused collecting years and am now motivated to go check them out. Thanks for peaking my interest!

 

RI AL

[RI AL]

Hey, Conder.

 

Thanks for the token book information! I have copies of "Patriotic and Civil War Tokens" George and Melvin Fuld and " Hard Times Tokens" 1832-1844 by Rulau. I just assumed that the material in both was incorporated into the Standard Catalog of U.S. Tokens and so, have never really paid either book much attention. Am I missing anything?

 

RI Al

[Conder101]

I would think that the hard times book was swollowed whole since Rulau wrote both books, and his Hard times token work was not that large. But the Fuld's book on Patriotics is so large that naturally much must have been left out. I have to admit that I haven't examined the Standard Catalog recently so I can't say how much has been dropped. It is possible that he just incorporated one of the much earlier editions of Fuld. I used to have I think the first or second edition and it was little more than poor quality pictures of all the dies and a table listing the known die combinations. The latest, fifth edition I think, goes into much greater depth exploring relationships between dies, the engravers, die states, groups the dies into "families" and does attribution guides for each etc.