1935 Alaska RRC Bingle Nickel

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

This is the five-cent token of the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation. In 1935 the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, a federal New Deal body, moved about two hundred farm families from the Midwest to the Matanuska Valley near Palmer and issued tokens in eight values from one cent to ten dollars to spend at the colony store; each adult received $30 in tokens and each child $5 (Rumsey lot description; Antique Trader). A 1955 booklet of the corporation says the tokens were in use some six months only, during the winter of 1935-36 (E-Sylum), while the Rumsey description says their issue stopped in 1937 and redemption ran through 1938, when most were melted. In Alaska bingle is a name for tokens in general; the Rumsey description and the booklet connect it with a local minister named Bingle (E-Sylum; Rumsey). A set in the same eight values dated 1985 was struck later (NGC census), from rediscovered original dies according to Numista (search). It is aluminum (APMEX, search; Antique Trader describes the set as aluminum). PCGS number 20021.