1935 Alaska RRC Bingle Nickel

Coin Details

Auction Record

$51 AU53 09-20-2013 Stack's Bowers

Description

The 1935 Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation five-cent bingle served as a utilitarian medium of exchange within the Matanuska Valley Colony, the ambitious New Deal agricultural resettlement in territorial Alaska. President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the colonization project in early 1935, and by May of that year the first families arrived in Palmer, Alaska, to begin farming homesteads carved from the wilderness of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. The five-cent denomination was struck in brass and carries the same basic design as the other bingle values: the denomination and BINGLE designation on one side, with the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation attribution on the other. The brass composition gives the nickel-value piece a warm golden appearance that readily distinguishes it from conventional United States five-cent coins. Like all denominations in the series, the five-cent bingle was manufactured outside Alaska — at a commercial token-making facility in the contiguous states — and shipped north for distribution through the colony's cooperative store system. The colony's internal economy operated on a credit system where colonists received advances against future agricultural production. The bingles functioned as physical tokens within this closed economic loop, redeemable only at the ARRC commissary. This arrangement drew criticism from some colonists and outside observers who viewed the scrip system as paternalistic, and the program was phased out relatively quickly as the colony matured and integrated with the broader Alaskan economy.

Rarity Notes

Scarce. Brass composition aided survival compared to the aluminum cent. Estimated 100-200 examples extant. Most survivors show moderate to heavy circulation wear from active use in the colony store.