(No Date) Civil War Store Card F-290D-1A, IN

Coin Details

Description

Civil War store card issued by A.D. Brandiff & Co. of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Indiana was an important agricultural and manufacturing state, with merchants producing store cards as emergency currency when federal coinage was hoarded. With 2 known varieties, A.D. Brandiff & Co. produced a modest number of token types. Struck in copper, this die combination (Fuld 290D-1A) is common. Like the majority of Civil War store cards, this token is undated, produced during the acute 1862-1864 small change crisis. 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 2 cataloged varieties, A.D. Brandiff & Co. was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld 290D-1A