Civil War Tokens

DAM

Daveyn,

I thought I would post the images here so others could see them too. You said you and your wife were interested in collecting Civil War era coins. I thought you might be interested in these too.

These are images of Civil War Tokens. Civil War Tokens were produced by merchants due to the shortage of cents during the war.

Most Civil War Tokens are very plentiful and not too expensive. I think I paid $15 to $25 for the ones here.

Cocoinut

Civil War Tokens fall into 2 categories; patriotic, which bear no merchant name, but carry a patriotic theme instead, and merchant tokens (or "store cards") that could be redeemed at the business that isued them. The merchant's name and address appear on these tokens. The ones that DAM shows are all patriotic. Most are the size of a small cent, and many even have an Indian Head design on the obverse, and on the reverse will habe the word "NOT" above ONE CENT. While there are some scarce and relatively expensive ones, you can find more common uncirculated tokens for around $25. An interesting area of exonumia.

Jim

DAM

Thanks for the added information Jim, I have limited knowledge of the coins.

I first saw one when I won a bag of pennies at a coin auction. The majority were wheat cents. There were some Indian cents an a Civil War Token or two, also. I found them interesting and buy one now and then when I see one I like.

DAM

daveyn

Dam,
Thanks for the scans, I have a friend sending me a few of the tokens. I was looking at the Registry sets again today. Your Two cent collection and the three cent silvers, that looks like it could take a while to put together.
I allways thought the Morgan dollar was the prettiest coin ever minted, but I was looking at some of the scans in David Poole's Three cent nickel proofs, and boy is that a nice looking coin.
I guess I should spend a little more time looking at the registry, there are some really nice sets around.

Jim, thanks for the info on the tokens.


Daveyn

Cocoinut

Here are a few examples of the Civil War store cards that were mentioned earlier in this thread. These are all the size of a small cent.

Another note: production of CWT's was prohibited in 1864. The vast majority that I've seen have been dated 1863

Jim

nwcs

Nice to see some tokens. I actually have the first one you had a pic of. Mine's in a little better condition, but it's neat to see that someone else has one!

Neil