(No Date) Civil War Store Card F-750E-4a, OH

Coin Details

Description

Civil War store card from Ohio, cataloged as Fuld 750E-4a. The breadth of Ohio's Civil War token production reflects the state's diverse economy, from Cincinnati's river trade to Cleveland's Lake Erie shipping to interior manufacturing towns. The copper composition of this variety (Fuld 750E-4a) is common for this merchant. Undated Civil War tokens like this one circulated alongside dated issues during the 1862-1864 period. 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 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 17 cataloged varieties, this merchant was a notable token issuer.

Cross References

Fuld 750E-4a