(1861) Civil War Store Card F-300-G-1b, Janesville; Smith/1111 WI

Coin Details

Description

Civil War store card issued by Janesville; Smith/1111 of Wisconsin. Wisconsin was a growing frontier state with Milwaukee as its largest commercial center, and its merchants issued tokens as practical solutions to the coin shortage. 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. 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. Surviving specimens are tangible artifacts of the wartime monetary crisis that affected every commercial transaction in the Northern states.

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 6 cataloged varieties, Janesville; Smith/1111 was a minor token issuer.

Cross References

Fuld 300-G