A First - Civil War Store Card

[Bell-Two]

The Dayton Diggers were invited up to a event for Women In The Outdoors, they had many different events such as canoeing, archery etc and of course metal detecting. We had two sessions and it was very succesful and after doing the demonstration on metal detecting we were allowed to hunt where we wanted in the camp area. The hunting was hard the ground had a lot of fill and only a few spots seemed to have undisturbed ground. A few things were found, Doug found a S&H token good for five cents off made of aluminum and to continue his streak of foreign coin finds he found a 1915 20 Centavos from Cuba which is silver! Sorry did not get a picture of this. I made two significant finds one of which is a first. One is a pendant from the Mercer County Ohio Fair from 1899 a nice looking pendant but one tip of the star is broken off. The next item is a Civil War Store Card.I found the citation for it in Rulau's United States Tokens book listed on page 503 It is from Smart & Co. Grocers 136 Main Street Piqua Ohio. According to Rulau's rarity rating for Civil War Store Cards it is estimated that only between 200-500 of this token still exist so it is very uncommon.

 

[banditicey]

Fantastic Finds

I'm some what unclear what the meaning of a "Civil War Store Card" is referring to
Could you please enlighten me

 

[NebTrac]

Wow! What a find Tony! I'm extremely happy for ya. Thanks for the pictures and congratulations.

NebTrac

 

[Bell-Two]

Fantastic Finds

I'm some what unclear what the meaning of a "Civil War Store Card" is referring to
Could you please enlighten me

During the Civil War people started hoarding coinage even the copper pennies the tokens issued by stores have become known as "Store Cards".

Below is from Wikipedia which is mostly from Rulau's book.

Civil War tokens are token coins that were privately minted and distributed in the United States between 1862 and 1864. They were used mainly in the Northeast and Midwest. The widespread use of the tokens was a result of the scarcity of government-issued cents during the Civil War.

Civil War tokens became illegal after the United States Congress passed a law on April 22, 1864 prohibiting the issue of any one or two-cent coins, tokens or devices for use as currency. On June 8, 1864 an additional law was passed that forbade all private coinage.

Civil War tokens are divided into three types

 

[bunker314]

Nice find and thanks for the info. It was a good read.
Bunker

 

[niterider_58]

Awesome find

 

[Bell-Two]

After a gentle peroxide bath this is how it looks now.

 

[hershey1]

Great information BT thanks! Tokens are always a good find. HH

 

[RandyNorthridgeca]

n/t