(1835) Token HT-120, New Orleans LA

Coin Details

Description

This New Orleans token from 1835 is part of the Louisiana Hard Times token series but its specific merchant attribution has not been confirmed in available references. The token may represent an intermediate partnership arrangement within the Hall/Walker/Walton hardware and ship chandlery succession at 17 New Levee, or it may document an entirely separate New Orleans merchant. New Orleans in 1835 was at the height of its antebellum prosperity. The cotton trade was booming, steamboat traffic on the Mississippi was increasing annually, and the city's population was growing rapidly with immigration from both the American interior and Europe. The concentration of wealth in New Orleans supported a diverse merchant class ranging from the great cotton factors and commission houses to small retailers serving the city's working population. The dating of this token to 1835—two years before the Panic of 1837—places it in the late expansion phase of the economic cycle. Tokens issued during this pre-panic period served primarily as advertising novelties rather than as desperate substitutes for scarce coinage, as the coin shortage that would characterize the Hard Times proper had not yet developed.

Rarity Notes

Scarce. Pre-panic New Orleans merchant token from 1835.

Cross References

Rulau HT-120