Written by Q. David Bowers, Chairman Emeritus
I have been interested in Civil
War tokens for a long time. My fascination with them dates back to the 1950s
when I first learned about them and set about buying examples. I soon met Dr.
George Fuld, who at the time was with MIT in Massachusetts. From George I
bought several thousand duplicates, a trading stock, most of which were soon
offered for sale by Empire Coin Company, which I conducted in partnership with
Jim Ruddy.
Fast forward to more recent
times, today the Civil War Token Society (check the Internet) publishes the Civil War Token Journal with
advertisements, historical articles, research findings and more. Believe it or
not the annual membership fee is just $15, for which you get four copies of the
journal.
Scheduled for release in mid
summer is the Guide Book of Civil War
Tokens, to be published by Whitman. I researched and wrote this, completing
it last year. This will describe hundreds of different token issuers and
illustrate different dies.
Today in 2013, Civil War tokens
offer many interesting opportunities. Great rarities -- tokens for which fewer
than a dozen are known -- can be purchased for a few hundred dollars each,
sometimes even less! Compared to federal coinage, the field is relatively
undiscovered. The number of active participants is probably in the low
thousands.
Concerning Civil War tokens in
general, these were mostly the size of contemporary one-cent pieces. Beginning
in July 1862, when the outcome of the Civil War was uncertain, cents
disappeared from circulation. Citizens preferred hard money to paper, and by
that time gold and silver had long since been absent from commerce. Now, there
was no federal money with which to buy a newspaper, get a haircut, or ride a
horse-drawn streetcar. Stepping into the void were private individuals who
commissioned cent-sized tokens to be struck, usually in copper, but sometimes
in brass. Millions of these were soon in circulation and were widely used. Over
1,000 merchants issued them with their advertising and other inscriptions. In
addition, large numbers of patriotic tokens were produced -- with flags,
cannon, ships and other motifs.
Investigate Civil War tokens. You
will find many opportunities.
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