American civil war - Encased postage. Full mica film with no damage. During the civil war, economic uncertainty prompted the masses to hoard large quantities of coins for the value of their metal. In 1862, an enterprising businessman John Gault patented the first American encased postage taking advantage of the population's partiality towards coin-like circulating items of value. Since postal stamps carry an intrinsic face-value, these encased stamps were readily accepted as mediums of exchange and thus John Gault made a small fortune selling these "currencies" as well as from advertising proceeds on their back from local enterprises. However, within a year or so, the populace began to realize that the cost of procuring and owning these costs more than their exchange value and they faced a significant crash in demand. Despite a low number issued, after the war, many were destroyed by owners extracting the stamp within for actual mailing purposes or melted for its metal. Even more were badly damaged especially the delicate mica film protecting the stamp.
It is one of those pseudo currencies which are pretty interesting.. there are also those with advertisements at the back..
I've never even seen an image of one that nice, thanks for sharing. The mica and the postage stamp are excellent.
They are listed in both the Friedberg currency catalog and the Scott's US specialized stamp catalog - my 2016 Scott's has nice pictures, showing the varieties of fronts and backs. [Scott's also lists the first issue of fractional currency - the ones that had representations of stamps on them.]
