(No Date) Civil War Store Card F-970B-1ha, Plastic A.P. Ware & Co. MA

Coin Details

Description

Civil War store card issued by Plastic A.P. Ware & Co. of Massachusetts. Massachusetts was a center of manufacturing and abolitionist sentiment, with Boston and surrounding cities contributing Civil War tokens as emergency currency. The absence of a date on this token is standard for the 1862-1864 era, when speed of production mattered more than formality. Die sinkers offered merchants a choice of metals, with copper being cheapest and most common, while silver and gold were struck for collectors. Civil War tokens addressed a practical problem: the wartime disappearance of federal small change made daily transactions nearly impossible without private substitutes. Many Civil War tokens survive in high grades because merchants and the public saved them as novelties, resulting in a better average preservation than contemporary federal coins.

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 1 cataloged varieties, Plastic A.P. Ware & Co. was a limited producer of Civil War tokens.

Cross References

Fuld 970B-1ha