(1863) Civil War Store Card F-225-M-5d, Detroit; Busch/1069 MI

Coin Details

Description

Merchant token from Detroit; Busch/1069 of Michigan, cataloged as Fuld 225-M. Michigan's merchants across numerous cities actively produced tokens to combat the small change shortage affecting Northern commerce. 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. 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 19 cataloged varieties, Detroit; Adderley/1069 was a notable token issuer.

Cross References

Fuld 225-M