(No Date) Civil War Store Card F-495A-1A, IN

Coin Details

Auction Record

$110 MS65BN 12-16-2020 Stack's Bowers

Description

Robt. Cooder of Jonesboro issued this token as emergency currency during the Civil War coin shortage. Indiana was an important agricultural and manufacturing state, with merchants producing store cards as emergency currency when federal coinage was hoarded. Robt. Cooder issued 6 die varieties, more than most Civil War merchants. This copper striking (Fuld 495A-1A) is common among the known varieties. 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. Between 1862 and 1864, Northern merchants produced millions of private tokens to compensate for the disappearance of federal coinage. The cent-sized format was chosen deliberately to match the federal Indian Head cent, the coin most conspicuously absent from daily commerce.

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 6 cataloged varieties, Robt. Cooder was a minor token issuer.

Cross References

Fuld 495A-1A