Out of the office until January 12th
Last new tokens added: December 04, 2008
New items were added Wednesday to the following categories: Civil War Ohio and Pennsylvania, Hard Times and Merchant tokens and Communion tokens.
Last updated for sold items: January 05, 2009
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Steve Hayden PO Box 22514 Charleston, SC 29413 Phone/FAX (843) 973-4556
E-mail civilwartokens@aol.com to be notified of future updates.
PRICE LIST TERMS:
Order by phone, fax, mail or e-mail. Send me your e-mail address if you would like to receive future price lists electronically. Please add $2.00 to orders under $50.00 for postage and handling, orders over $50.00 are sent free of charges charge to United States destinations. Fourteen day return privilege for any reason. All items are guaranteed genuine and as attributed. I am always interested in purchasing collections or single tokens. Send tokens for an offer or a listing for an estimate. I am also accepting consignments for future mail bid sales, write for terms. Send me your want lists. I have been working hard on want lists.
SHOW / AUCTION SCHEDULE:
| December 6, 2008 | Mail / Phone Auction | Mail / Phone Auction |
| January 8 to 11, 2009 | Orlando, Florida | FUN Coin Show |
COMPOSITION OF CIVIL TOKENS:
Civil War tokens were manufactured in a
number of different metallic compositions as well as rubber. In the
cataloging of these tokens the composition is indicated by a lower case letter
at the end of the Fuld number. The following is a list of the codes used.
a Copper
b Brass
c Nickel (Has been removed
from the latest book as actually German Silver)
d Copper-Nickel
e White Metal
f Silver
g Lead
h Hard Rubber
i Zinc (Has been
removed from latest book as actually Tin Plated)
j German Silver
k Gilt
m Tin (Usually plated brass, formerly
listed as Zinc)
CIVIL WAR PATRIOTIC vs. STORE CARDS:
Regular issue US coinage was hoarded during the Civil War restricting merchant's ability to make small change. Some merchants had tokens made to give out as change in their stores. If you ordered the least expensive tokens you would receive a combination of two existing dies, usually of a patriotic nature or similar to a US cent, these are called Patriotic Civil War Tokens. If you had more to spend you could have one or two dies custom made for you with information specific to your business (i.e. location, occupation, specialties, etc.) these are called Civil War Store Cards.
RARITY RATINGS:
The rarity scale for Civil War tokens is listed below.
Most collectors collect by town, merchant or die. Very few try to get one of
each die combination and metal composition. So value is determined more by supply and demand
than by individual rarity. Additionally, more than a few pieces have incorrect rarity ratings
(both over and under rated) in current references due to outdated information, hoards, mistakes or typo's.
R1 Very Common more than 5,000 estimated to exist
R2 Common 2,000 to 4,999 estimated to exist
R3 500 to 1,999 estimated to exist
R4 200 to 499 estimated to exist
R5 Scarce 75 to 199 estimated to exist
R6 Very Scarce 20 to 74 estimated to exist
R7 Rare 10 to 19 estimated to exist
R8 Very Rare 5 to 9 estimated to exist
R9 Extremely Rare 2 to 4 estimated to exist
R10 Unique only one estimated to exist
LINKS:
http://www.cwtsociety.com The site of the Civil War Token Society.
http://www.exonumia.com This site has an extensive link page to other exonumia web sites.
http://www.medalcollectors.org This is the site of the Medal Collectors of America and contains much useful information.