(1863) Copper Civil War Store Card F-630B-1a, B. Holcomb IN

Coin Details

Auction Record

$275 MS64BN 02-06-2023 eBay

Description

Fuld 630B-1a — store card of B. Holcomb, Mishawaka, Indiana. Indiana was an important agricultural and manufacturing state, with merchants producing store cards as emergency currency when federal coinage was hoarded. With 4 known varieties, B. Holcomb produced a modest number of token types. This copper striking (Fuld 630B-1a) is common among the known varieties. 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. 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 4 cataloged varieties, B. Holcomb was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld 630B-1a