23rd Massachusetts Regiment Sutler tokens from the John J. Ford Collection

DCW

A while back, I had the privilege to acquire in its entirety this amazing set of sutler tokens belonging to the 23rd Massachusetts Regiment.
MA-23-5C Copper. 19 mm. NGC MS-64 BN ex. Ford

MA-23-10C Copper. 19 mm. NGC MS-66 RB ex. Ford

MA-23-25C Copper. 19 mm. NGC MS-66 RB ex. Ford

MA-23-50C Copper. 19 mm. NGC MS-65 RB ex. Ford

MA-23-50C Copper. 19 mm. NGC MS-66 BN ex. Ford (duplicate)

For those unfamiliar, a sutler was a vendor that followed the regiment in his wagon, providing goods and comforts to the soldiers of the regiment at a price. They were basically the forerunner of the post exchanges that exist to this day.
These particular pieces were struck by Joseph H. Merriam of Boston for Harvey Lewis, the regimental sutler. Interestingly, they are perhaps the first use of a modular die, thought to be Merriam's own creation. As you will note, the reverse die had a circular section that could be interchanged with various denominations (5c, 10c, 25c, 50c.) For whatever reason, the 5c is far and away the rarest of the group, followed in rarity by the 25c, 50c, and the 10c which is perhaps the most available.
This set had been previously auctioned in the John J. Ford Collection in 2013 and acquired by Q. David Bowers at that time. Ford purchased these from the Harmer Rooke Collection in 1970.
They are slabbed, but included in the sale were all the original little envelopes of storage, marked in the handwriting of those collectors that have long passed. I love that connection, the nexus that provenance brings to the history of the pieces themselves.
While not prohibitively rare in the context of Sutler tokens, these examples of the 23rd MA Regiment are the highest quality I've ever encountered, and I consider myself very fortunate to be able to add these to the collection of Merriam's work.
Thank you for looking.

CaptHenway

Fabulous set!

AlexinPA

Impressive, as always. Thanks for posting.

coinsarefun

Amazing set! Incredible state of preservation. You can always pick out Merriam's
wonderful die work.

Sonorandesertrat

Sutler tokens, when encountered, are usually well-worn and/or beat up. The state of preservation of the tokens in that set is remarkable.

Boosibri

Fabulous set DCW!

Namvet69

A set to be proud of, for sure. And that provenance is awesome. Peace Roy

tokenpro

@Sonorandesertrat said:
Sutler tokens, when encountered, are usually well-worn and/or beat up. The state of preservation of the tokens in that set is remarkable.

I would have agreed with that assessment ten years ago but since then a plethora of au and unc sutlers have come on the market from a number of sources. The Ford auctions had individual rarities & numerous duplicates, Tannenbaum's collection, QDB's collection and large accumulation, Schenkman's collection & two large collections from top private collectors have led to extended auction listings of sutlers instead of the two or three circ pieces per auction that we used to see. There's a lot of uncs out there but there are also several semi-new serious collectors as well. Availability of scarce items = renewed interest in a series.

johnny9434

Its wicked cool to see that

Sonorandesertrat

tokenpro,
Thanks for the information. My comment was based on my observations from more than a decade ago, when I gave some thought to collecting them.

CWT1863

Outstanding set! I especially like how the original envelopes remained with the tokens as that is not always the case. Having an envelope with handwriting from past collectors adds another level of "holding history in your hands" in addition to the history of the actual token. I have an example of the 50 cent that I purchased a few years ago as my first sutler token. While it is in much lower condition than yours, it is special as it was my first one.

WildIdea

Awesome tokens! It’s posts like this that I really appreciate. Getting to see things I normally wouldn’t in my neck of the woods keeps me poking around here. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to post.

joeykoins

kaz

those are some great looking tokens, and really important historic artifacts. Thanks for sharing!

Zoins

@DCW said:
This set had been previously auctioned in the John J. Ford Collection in 2013 and acquired by Q. David Bowers at that time. Ford purchased these from the Harmer Rooke Collection in 1970.

This is a beautiful set! As for the provenance, I wonder if these belonged to Virgil Brand.

Harmer, Rooke was an auction company, "Harmer, Rooke Numismatists, Ltd." based in New York City. It was owned by E.G. Harmer in 1905 shown in the photo below. The firm sold 16,398 lots in 1906 growing to 24,736 lots in 1910. In the 1980s it was also known as Harmer Rooke Galleries, like Stack's Bowers Galleries. In 1969, they sold Virgil Brand's Civil War Token collection - read more below with a link to the catalog posted on the Newman Numismatic Portal.

• Harmer, Rooke article: http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/nostalgia/messrs-harmer-rooke-co-stamps-in-the-sale-room-1910/

In 1969 they had a big sale called "A Million Dollar Sale" which included the Civil War Token collection from Virgil Brand per Steve Butler.

The E-Sylum: Volume 10, Number 28, July 15, 2007, Article 15

HARMER ROOKE MILLION DOLLAR SALE CIVIL WAR TOKEN SESSION PRL SOUGHT

Steve Butler writes: "I am looking for the prices realized for the Harmer Rooke 'A Million Dollar Sale' of November 17, 1969. I have not been able to locate it - neither the American Numismatic Association library or any of the other coin & book dealers I contacted have it."

The sale contained seven sessions, over six days. The fourth session was Civil War Tokens & Masonic Pennies from the Virgil Brand collection. Being a collector of CWT's, I am always researching any token I purchase as to origin. I just purchased a token sold in that auction and the seller included the original receipt. The catalog I already own, but I'd like to learn the selling price of the lot. Thanks in advance."

Wayne Homren, Editor

• E-Sylum article: https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v10n28a15.html

The catalog is on the NNP. I wonder if these tokens can be found in this catalog! I also wonder how many tokens can be attributed to Virgil Brand today. The fourth session starts on page 114.

• 1969 Catalog: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=510898&AuctionId=519658&page=1

DCW

@WildIdea said:
Awesome tokens! It’s posts like this that I really appreciate. Getting to see things I normally wouldn’t in my neck of the woods keeps me poking around here. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to post.

Man, I really appreciate that.

And thanks to @Zoins for the added info. I had no idea Harmer Rooke was an auction firm, though I did think the name was odd.
Perhaps they were from Virgil Brand?

calgolddiver

outstanding set !!! congratulations @DCW . and thanks for sharing all the history !!

Zoins

Are the reverses dies used on any other tokens?

DCW

@Zoins said:
Are the reverses dies used on any other tokens?

Perhaps the denominations in the center of the die were used on the C.F. Tuttle pieces:

But the reverse die proper is unique to the Harvey Lewis Sutler token.

tokenpro

Back about ten years ago or so, Dave Bowers wrote a story about the Harvey Lewis sutler tokens that was published in (IIRC) Numismatic News -- it might have been done while sorting and cataloging Ford's huge exonumia collection for auction. Along with telling the story of sutler Lewis, he had noticed the interchangeable denomination dies on the reverse and wondered if anyone had pointed out this distinctive feature previously. I wrote a letter in reply -- which NN turned into a short article -- noting that both Paul Koppenhaver and Civil War token dealer Walt Korzick had pointed out that reverse die to me (and others) and had done the same in Paul's auctions and Walt's fixed price lists of the 1980's and 1990's. I would guarantee that someone somewhere noticed and named (that's another story) the reverse die details long before that as well.

Zoins

@DCW said:

@Zoins said:
Are the reverses dies used on any other tokens?

Perhaps the denominations in the center of the die were used on the C.F. Tuttle pieces: [...]

But the reverse die proper is unique to the Harvey Lewis Sutler token.

The center die "5" looks like the same font.

The center die on the Harvey Lewis looks like it has a die crack that doesn't exist on the Tuttle's token.

DCW

@Zoins said:
The center die "5" looks like the same font.

The center die on the Harvey Lewis looks like it has a die crack that doesn't exist on the Tuttle's token.

Could be that the Sutlers were struck after the Tuttle Storecards.
The crack could also explain the rarity of the 5c Sutler

DCW

Was able to score this 5c at the last Stacks auction for a price I considered reasonable. This is the rarest denomination of the 23rd Mass Regt tokens by far, and it is almost impossible to locate in mint state:
PCGS MS62BN, ex. Bowers