A first glance at a never before photographed rare Baltimore merchant store card token...
Broadstruck
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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 Plain Edge, 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 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 on a thin 25mm diameter plain edge brass planchet the obverse Liberty Head with 4 stars is the same just enlarged 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 owned by G. C. Norris and only listed in Baltimore's business directories for having been in operation during 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 of bookmarked catalogs 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. None surfaced in the recent John Ford Jr. sale which included hearty concentration of Baltimore token issues acquired 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 store card that might very well be both the Wright & Fuld specimen which 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 are walking the brouse floor your actually 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.
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 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 on a thin 25mm diameter plain edge brass planchet the obverse Liberty Head with 4 stars is the same just enlarged 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 owned by G. C. Norris and only listed in Baltimore's business directories for having been in operation during 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 of bookmarked catalogs 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. None surfaced in the recent John Ford Jr. sale which included hearty concentration of Baltimore token issues acquired 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 store card that might very well be both the Wright & Fuld specimen which 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 are walking the brouse floor your actually 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.
To Err Is Human.... To Collect Err's Is Just Too Much Darn Tootin Fun!
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Comments
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
bob
<< <i>Wow, congrats! Where did you find it? >>
Thanks as I accidentally stumbled across it on the web being offered as a rare game counter spiel marke
<< <i>That's getting up close and personal with your tokens!
bob
Thanks as research these heavily makes this far removed from federal coinage area of numismatics so much fun!
<< <i>Great post!
Thanks Kranky glad you enjoyed it!
<< <i>I equally agree - great story
Thanks Stone!
<< <i>Cool write up as always and great historic background/photos....and of course great get on that one!
oh yeah and this is one awesome looking token too!
Thanks Realone... Yeah I just had to have this one!
<< <i>Great writeup and very cool token! I had never seen it before either. >>
Thanks NER... Me neither!
I wondering if Dorman walked into the store and showed Norris that this is what he could produce to improve his business advertising...
Very much like all the companies today that send you sample business monogrammed items
It really adds alot when you can link the token to the story of the merchant and link the merchant to the building where he conducted his business. Say what you will about great rarities. To me this kind of information is far more valuable than just talking about how rare something is. Of course if the item turns out to be a rarity, that just adds to the fun.
<< <i>Great post !!!
It really adds alot when you can link the token to the story of the merchant and link the merchant to the building where he conducted his business. Say what you will about great rarities. To me this kind of information is far more valuable than just talking about how rare something is. Of course if the item turns out to be a rarity, that just adds to the fun.
Thanks BillJones!
Yes one of my favorite things is typing in the address on these tokens and doing a web search after figuring out what is was renumbered to under the "Philadelphia Plan" which underwent many major cities in the mid to late 1850's. With Goggle Maps you can actually stand in front of the property location which mostly yields you the view of vacant lot with debris or a newer erected building.
Looks like a very attractive example, too. When you have extreme rarity and add great eye appeal, it doesn't get much better. Very cool that you found the piece the way you did. Congrats!
Here is a map of the great fire:
Here is the view (so it says written on the upper-right corner) from Hanover St: