BS
Broadstruck
Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
A first glance at a rare Baltimore merchant store card token.
1876 Carrollton Clothing House, Baltimore, Maryland, Duffield-20 / Miller-MD-23 / Rulau MD-BA-10 / Schenkman 60-C35/ Wright-1661, 25mm Diameter, Thin Planchet, Non Reeded, Brass.
This token has never come forth for photography and has never been plated in any reference guide.
It’s always just been described as "The Carrollton", below, "Clothing House." In the center, "—171— | W. Balto. St. | Next to the | Carrollton | Hotel." Rev. Female head 1., coronet with four stars, within a circle of 11 stars. In exergue, "1876." Brass. Size 25.
This token was considered Rare by Dr. Benjamin P. Wright’s in his “The American Store or Business Cards” research originally printed in the “The Numismatist” from 1898 to 1901 and at the time just 22 years after being struck assigned it a Rarity-4 status.
Frank G. Duffied who’s main area of interest was exonumia moved to Baltimore in 1889 and in 1907 contributed an article to “The Numismutist” titled “The Merchant Cards and Tokens of Baltimore”. In his research work stated "The Carrollton Clothing House" card is Extremely Rare and the specimen in Dr. B. P. Wright's collection being the only one he knows of.
Fifty some years later George Fuld & his father Melvin mentioned they had a example in their collection and possibly knew of one other.
The die sinker for this token was John F. W. Dorman who was located at 19 German Street in Baltimore. Struck in very low relief the obverse Liberty Head design with 4 stars is the same design which Dorman used on his 1875 20mm diameter store card with the exception of using 2 lesser peripheral stars then the 13 on his own. 11 stars is quite unusual and looking at the obverse of the Carrollton Clothing House there was room to include them.
The Carrollton Clothing House was only listed in any business directories for having been for having been in operation for the year of 1876. So this token may very well have been a pattern and with the business having failed in its first year no further production of advertising store cards for circulation commenced.
Having searched through 100 years worth of exonumia auctions (which is a dozen two foot high piles that resembles an episode of Hoarders) this particular token has only crossed the podium twice and based descriptions is the same example shown here. It was missing from many major collections which focused on Baltimore token issues such as Robert Lindersmith, Lionel Rudduck, Gilbert Steinberg and others. Non surfaced in the recent John Ford Jr. sale which included hearty concentration of Baltimore token issues aquired from Fred C.C. Boyd, Wayte Raymond, Max Schwartz and others.
This was valued by Benjamin Wright at $2.50 in 1898 and oddly just $5.00 in 1962 by Donald Miller. Russell Rulau on many tokens that he couldn’t find an auction price just used Miller’s 1962 values. In his first edition of “United States Trade Tokens 1866-1889” he also valued it at $5.00 and jumped the price to $7.50 in his second edition along with another final increase to $27.50 in his latest 2004 edition. As there are many tokens Rulau has valued at $50.00 just 9 years ago that today sell for upwards of $5,000.00 I had no issue adding this to my collection and paying multiples of guide book value to acquire it. As it is a mid level Rarity-8 quite possibly Unique Rarity-9 token which might very well be both the Wright and Fuld specimen and has never been seen by the exonumia collector community before.
I've also enclosed some photographs of the Carrollton Hotel and the building next door as they stood at the time of this tokens centennial dated year of issue and one taken in 1904 of it's remains. West Baltimore Street is just a couple blocks away from the convention center that Whitman uses for it's shows. When your attending the show later this week and standing on the brouse floor your actually walking amidst the center of a 140 acre region which was engulfed in the great fire which yielded the loss of over 1,500 buildings in the downtown Baltimore harbor area over the course of two days in February of 1904.
1845-57 Smith, Murphy & Company, Philadelphia, Miller-PA-481 / Wright-1004, 29mm Diameter, Plain Non Reeded Edge, Brass, Rarity-4.
I had never seen one in XF as must seen are VG - VF. Rulau books it at $60 in UNC Joe Levine just VG-VF going back to 1976. Bowers handled Gilbert Steinberg's two AU50's in 1989 and one sold in 2003 for $489. Ford had two a AU50 and this is the better of them which was cataloged as AU55. The seller swears it's UNC and if it shows up w/o rub it's then finest known period. Smith & Murphy in business from 1845 went under during the Panic of 1857 after the Central America sank in a hurricane and banks collapsed when the gold shipment was lost. It's a cool larger 29mm diameter token with a goofy looking federal eagle obverse.
1962 $35.00 Miller-PA-481 / wRIGHT-1004 RULAU $60 rARITY-4 $2.00 97 market street renumbered to 258
Boston coin dealer, Harold E. Whiteneck Oct 1957
1876 Carrollton Clothing House, Baltimore, Maryland, Duffield-20 / Miller-MD-23 / Rulau MD-BA-10 / Schenkman 60-C35/ Wright-1661, 25mm Diameter, Thin Planchet, Non Reeded, Brass.
This token has never come forth for photography and has never been plated in any reference guide.
It’s always just been described as "The Carrollton", below, "Clothing House." In the center, "—171— | W. Balto. St. | Next to the | Carrollton | Hotel." Rev. Female head 1., coronet with four stars, within a circle of 11 stars. In exergue, "1876." Brass. Size 25.
This token was considered Rare by Dr. Benjamin P. Wright’s in his “The American Store or Business Cards” research originally printed in the “The Numismatist” from 1898 to 1901 and at the time just 22 years after being struck assigned it a Rarity-4 status.
Frank G. Duffied who’s main area of interest was exonumia moved to Baltimore in 1889 and in 1907 contributed an article to “The Numismutist” titled “The Merchant Cards and Tokens of Baltimore”. In his research work stated "The Carrollton Clothing House" card is Extremely Rare and the specimen in Dr. B. P. Wright's collection being the only one he knows of.
Fifty some years later George Fuld & his father Melvin mentioned they had a example in their collection and possibly knew of one other.
The die sinker for this token was John F. W. Dorman who was located at 19 German Street in Baltimore. Struck in very low relief the obverse Liberty Head design with 4 stars is the same design which Dorman used on his 1875 20mm diameter store card with the exception of using 2 lesser peripheral stars then the 13 on his own. 11 stars is quite unusual and looking at the obverse of the Carrollton Clothing House there was room to include them.
The Carrollton Clothing House was only listed in any business directories for having been for having been in operation for the year of 1876. So this token may very well have been a pattern and with the business having failed in its first year no further production of advertising store cards for circulation commenced.
Having searched through 100 years worth of exonumia auctions (which is a dozen two foot high piles that resembles an episode of Hoarders) this particular token has only crossed the podium twice and based descriptions is the same example shown here. It was missing from many major collections which focused on Baltimore token issues such as Robert Lindersmith, Lionel Rudduck, Gilbert Steinberg and others. Non surfaced in the recent John Ford Jr. sale which included hearty concentration of Baltimore token issues aquired from Fred C.C. Boyd, Wayte Raymond, Max Schwartz and others.
This was valued by Benjamin Wright at $2.50 in 1898 and oddly just $5.00 in 1962 by Donald Miller. Russell Rulau on many tokens that he couldn’t find an auction price just used Miller’s 1962 values. In his first edition of “United States Trade Tokens 1866-1889” he also valued it at $5.00 and jumped the price to $7.50 in his second edition along with another final increase to $27.50 in his latest 2004 edition. As there are many tokens Rulau has valued at $50.00 just 9 years ago that today sell for upwards of $5,000.00 I had no issue adding this to my collection and paying multiples of guide book value to acquire it. As it is a mid level Rarity-8 quite possibly Unique Rarity-9 token which might very well be both the Wright and Fuld specimen and has never been seen by the exonumia collector community before.
I've also enclosed some photographs of the Carrollton Hotel and the building next door as they stood at the time of this tokens centennial dated year of issue and one taken in 1904 of it's remains. West Baltimore Street is just a couple blocks away from the convention center that Whitman uses for it's shows. When your attending the show later this week and standing on the brouse floor your actually walking amidst the center of a 140 acre region which was engulfed in the great fire which yielded the loss of over 1,500 buildings in the downtown Baltimore harbor area over the course of two days in February of 1904.
1845-57 Smith, Murphy & Company, Philadelphia, Miller-PA-481 / Wright-1004, 29mm Diameter, Plain Non Reeded Edge, Brass, Rarity-4.
I had never seen one in XF as must seen are VG - VF. Rulau books it at $60 in UNC Joe Levine just VG-VF going back to 1976. Bowers handled Gilbert Steinberg's two AU50's in 1989 and one sold in 2003 for $489. Ford had two a AU50 and this is the better of them which was cataloged as AU55. The seller swears it's UNC and if it shows up w/o rub it's then finest known period. Smith & Murphy in business from 1845 went under during the Panic of 1857 after the Central America sank in a hurricane and banks collapsed when the gold shipment was lost. It's a cool larger 29mm diameter token with a goofy looking federal eagle obverse.
1962 $35.00 Miller-PA-481 / wRIGHT-1004 RULAU $60 rARITY-4 $2.00 97 market street renumbered to 258
Boston coin dealer, Harold E. Whiteneck Oct 1957
To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
0