i just purchased a civil war token on ebay. thought it was in the red book but it wasn't. can anyone tell me anything about it, like grade,type,anyone know a website with info on it? any help would be appreciated. thanks guys
I have seen various version of this army & navy token...here is one I ran across a while back: http://www.coinpage.com/coin-image-2738.html I have also seen the one you are showing. All are 1963... I have seen a lot of them on ebay selling rather cheap. I cant say for sure...but these with the liberty cap vary wildly in style... cant say much about them though...sorry...
Good luck!! I've been trying to find a guide either online or in book form on CW tokens, and have had no luck at all. I collect them on occasion myself. You can try here: http://civilwartokens.com/ They have some info and links to info, but nothing like a variety guide that I can find. If you do find something, let me know. Guy~
The Rulau token book is pretty good for identifying CWT's ~ and yes, this is a fairly common variety but interesting nonetheless.
You mean like this one ? Patriotic Civil War Tokens by George & Melvin Fuld. I believe that is the definitive reference book for them. And you can take your pick of the books on the subject - HERE
The token that you have is id 18/304a. It is rated as an R-7 rarity token, indicating that 10-20 examples are known. While in general I believe that the rarity rating are rather good estimates, I believe that this particular token is more common than its rating. I have two of these, and have seen too many others for the rarity rating to be accurate for this token. Kanzinger's price guide backs my opinion up, with values of $30 for F/VF, $50 for XF and $100 for UNC. Those values are more in line with an R-5 or R-6 patriotic token. I would grade your token at XF details, but with some damage (the worst at the base of the bust) and spots of corrosion. I would also still consider this to be a desirable token. This die pair is typically seen with considerable lack of detail, especially on the reverse, and that should not be confused with wear. This type of token is known as a Patriotic Civil War token, or PCWT. These were the "generic" cwts, that merchants could purchase for about 1/3 cent each back in the day. The other major type of cwt are the store cards, which had merchant specific advertising on them, and which cost the merchant just under 1 cent each to purchase, but had the benefit of advertising to offset the higher cost. There are 42 dies with Liberty facing left (not counting the Indian head style) and 36 dies with ARMY & NAVY on them - and many, many combinations of die pairings amongst them.
Check out the Civil War Token Society site for books - http://www.cwtsociety.com/books.html A membership can more than pay for itself with the purchase of a book or two. A minimum of three books are really needed - the one to identify patriotics, one to identify store cards, and Kanzinger's book for valuations.
While often times info does not change much, I would like to mention that the cwt books shown in GDJMSP's links are not the most current editions, which are shown on the Civil War Token Society site. I did not check all of the books, but I noticed that the Rulau Standard Catalog is two editions old.
I don't want to come across as being contradictory CoinGal, but IMO Rulau's token book is nearly worthless for identifying cwts, and Rulau even indicates that himself (on page 433 of the 4th edition) by saying: "The current standard Fuld works on Patriotic and Store Card tokens are listed in the bibliography, and we commend those collectors who want full coverage on all the 11,000 plus varieties of this series to consult these books. In the present volume we offer coverage only of the commonest variety of each merchant's card (some "commonest" being ultra-rare!) and the commonest variety of each Patriotic die (again, many being very rare). I have picked up a number of scarce tokens that a seller incorrectly identified as a common because of using Rulau's catalog, not that I am complaining when that happens.....
cwtokenman: Thanks for the tip, and yes, I was also using the useless Rulau book. Perhaps I'll be able to get one of the others at the ANA. I'll try to post pictures later, my wife takes the pictures -- she has a macro lens. Thanks again.
