I have been researching these for my job and I thought that the crowd at CT would enjoy them as well. Please comment if you have any knowledge to share on these as well: View attachment 1334980
Not as much as you might think. The sutlers were in a high risk, high priced business for the time. Often the sutler would end up with most of a soldier's monthly pay, and some of them were in hock all the time. It was noted that some officers approved when the men had "sutler raids" to even the score. All sutler tokens are scarce to rare. If you want to get into them, be prepared with a nice big checkbook. The Massachusetts Harvey Lewis pieces are among the most common. I bought a sold a number of them when I was dealer. Here are a few I have left. Joseph Merriam, who made the Harvey Lewis pieces, had a neat way to use the same die for each nomination. The "50" in the center of the reverse can be pulled out and replaced by another number, like "10" or "25." This Massachusetts sutler issued a super simple token. I am guess this might be one dollar. It makes no sense to issue a one cent token. I kept this one because the reference to the Zouaves who wore colorful uniforms with baggy pants. Cincinnati die sinker, John Stanton, branded this one on the reverse.
I know this thread is a little old but picked up this NY Sutler on Saturday Civil War Sutler, F. Mangold, 9th New York State Militia, 10 Cents. S&I-NY-9-10B, R.6.Brass.