(1863) Copper Civil War Store Card F-120A-1a, PH. Carpeles & Co. WI

Coin Details

Auction Record

$38 AU53 01-20-2014 Stack's Bowers

Description

Civil War-era store card from PH. Carpeles & Co., a Columbus, Wisconsin business. As Ohio's capital, Columbus saw enormous wartime military activity, and its merchants issued tokens to facilitate commerce amid the acute coin shortage. Struck in copper, this die combination (Fuld 120A-1a) is common. Many Civil War tokens share common reverse dies, as die sinkers paired merchant-specific obverses with stock patriotic or advertising reverses. Civil War tokens addressed a practical problem: the wartime disappearance of federal small change made daily transactions nearly impossible without private substitutes. Die sinkers in major cities competed fiercely for merchant orders, offering stock reverses that could be paired with custom obverse dies featuring the merchant's name and business information. 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, PH. Carpeles & Co. was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld 120A-1a