(1861-65) Brass Civil War Store Card F-LU-D-1b, The Continental OH

Coin Details

Auction Record

$840 MS62 09-02-2021 Stack's Bowers

Description

Civil War merchant token bearing the name of The Continental in Ohio. Ohio's extensive commercial networks across dozens of cities generated an unparalleled body of merchant token issues during the 1862-1864 coin shortage. Each unique combination of obverse and reverse dies constitutes a separate Fuld catalog number, even when struck in the same metal. Between 1862 and 1864, Northern merchants produced millions of private tokens to compensate for the disappearance of federal coinage. Civil War tokens circulated alongside postage currency, fractional currency notes, and encased postage stamps as substitutes for the federal coins that had disappeared from commercial channels. The Fuld catalog documents thousands of distinct die combinations for Civil War store cards, making this one of the most complex series in American numismatics.

Rarity Notes

Copper strikings are generally the most common metal variant for Civil War store cards, as copper was the standard planchet material mimicking the federal cent. With 1 cataloged varieties, The Continental was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld LU-D