(1861-65) Copper Civil War Store Card F-150AN-1a, G.R. Meyer IL

Coin Details

Auction Record

$1,800 AU58BN 09-21-2022 Stack's Bowers

Description

Store card of G.R. Meyer in Illinois, struck during the 1862-1864 token era. Illinois was a critical Union state with Chicago rapidly becoming one of America's largest commercial centers, driving token production across the state. The copper composition of this variety (Fuld 150AN-1a) is common for this merchant. Token manufacturers struck pieces by the thousands, using hand-fed screw presses capable of producing several hundred tokens per hour. Civil War tokens addressed a practical problem: the wartime disappearance of federal small change made daily transactions nearly impossible without private substitutes. Merchants in border states faced particular challenges during the coin shortage, as economic uncertainty and military activity disrupted normal commercial patterns more severely than in the interior. Many Civil War tokens survive in high grades because merchants and the public saved them as novelties, resulting in a better average preservation than contemporary federal coins.

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, G.R. Meyer was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld 150AN-1a