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PA Merchants issued paper card cents
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13 posts in this topic

FYI- As much as 50% of the extant US Mint correspondence for 1864 consists of requests for cents (and a few 2-cent pieces), and letters regarding the supply of bronze cent planchets from Holmes, Booth & Hayden, a Waterbury, CT metal supply company.

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22 hours ago, RWB said:

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Sounded desperate. I would imagine the mint jumped right on it, Fed Exed it (pony express), fresh horse and rider, hopefully they didn't stop and vote a few times on the way, etc... I'm sure the rider was tipped with a 1864 $3 gold piece. 

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The Philadelphia Mint was at least 3-weeks behind on filling orders. (This was back when minor coins were ordered direct from the Mint, not sub-Treasuries.)

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During the Civil War many businesses issued their own fractional notes in the 1 to 50 cent range.  These private notes seems to be an area not widely collected or studied.  It was probably short lived once the government fractional currency came out, but a demand for notes of 1 or two cents probably remained for awhile.or was satisfied with Civil War tokens.

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2 hours ago, Conder101 said:

During the Civil War many businesses issued their own fractional notes in the 1 to 50 cent range.  These private notes seems to be an area not widely collected or studied.  It was probably short lived once the government fractional currency came out, but a demand for notes of 1 or two cents probably remained for awhile.or was satisfied with Civil War tokens.

It's an area with little study, and likely few extant examples: local issues, small businesses, fragile media, limited utility, early obsolescence, etc.

Edited by RWB
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[Would it be fair to say that the production of similar such scarcity of supply vs. unpredictable demand scenarios lay at the genesis of the advent of tokens circulating in rural communities much like those posted regularly on Just Bob's Tokens Tuesdays thread?]

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Closer to the paperboard "chits" he shows for a few merchants, but possibly more fragile. Mint letters imply there might have been more of this west of the Ohio River and in the South. Most store owners maintained credit accounts for local customers. These were settled at various times during the year such as fall harvest, livestock deliveries, or seasonal mining settlements.

Edited by RWB
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I was recently looking at the Smithsonian's collection and noticed they got a couple sea shells wrote on, "Good for....", however many cents. That is very interesting. I never knew it got that bad back in those days. Im learning more everyday. 

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Shortages of small change were severe during the Civil War, but that was not the only time when merchants issued their own coin substitutes. The field of metal tokens is populated with thousands of these, and many were made in response to financial panics/depressions. But many others, made in less substantial materials, were put into service because the US coin distribution system was ineffective. Small change had to be ordered from the Philadelphia Mint. No other mint was permitted to strike minor coins so that created a production/distribution bottleneck. By the mid-1880s merchants and banks supposed to order coins from the nearest sub-Treasury, but these facilities often did not have enough coins, and the whole system fell back on the Philadelphia Mint. It was only with passage of the Federal Reserve System Act that a nationwide coin and currency distribution system was organized - but that took almost 10 years to become effective.

There's a lot more but I won't bore folks....

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That is very interesting. One day im going to read more about it. Thanks for the info Condor. That will help me in my search when I go to look it up. Seems like we were taught something in history class about the bank holiday in 1933 back in high school. Thats been so long ago I can't remember what it was they were teaching us about it but I remember hearing it. I wish I'd payed more attention back in those days. 

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