(1835) Copper Token HT-216, Walsh's General Store

Coin Details

Auction Record

$45 AU Details 08-20-2019 Stack's Bowers

Description

This 1835 copper token from Walsh's General Store advertises Alexander Walsh's eclectic retail establishment in Lansingburgh, New York — a village just north of Troy on the east bank of the Hudson River. Walsh operated what he grandly called "Walsh's Museum," a general store that combined practical merchandise with curiosities and novelties to attract customers. The store sold a wide range of goods from groceries to dry goods, maintaining the varied inventory typical of country stores in small Hudson Valley communities. The token's reverse features a plough (plow) design, a common motif on Hard Times era tokens that symbolized agricultural industry and republican virtue. The combination of Walsh's mercantile advertising with the agricultural imagery reflects the dual nature of Lansingburgh's economy — part commercial center serving local farmers, part manufacturing town with its own industrial enterprises. The plough penny design connects this piece to the broader tradition of agricultural symbolism in American folk art and coinage. Lansingburgh tokens are rare in the Hard Times series, making this Walsh piece a notable document of commercial life in a small Hudson Valley community. The village would later be absorbed into the City of Troy in 1900, and Walsh's store represents the independent commercial identity that Lansingburgh maintained throughout the nineteenth century.

Rarity Notes

Scarce. Standard copper variety from Lansingburgh NY. Rarity R-3.

Cross References

Rulau HT-216