In regards to trade tokens, what does this mean? Listed in Fuld as a rarity 8. The Piece is 225AG-3a/1018 Thanks
Fuld is the author of the reference book used for these types of tokens. Unfortunately, I don't have the book, so I can't give you any more info than that. Rarity 8 on a scale from 1-10 is a very high rarity rating, meaning it's difficult to find. I believe the 225AG-3a/1018 refers to the reference number assigned to this particular token in the Fuld book. Someone come and correct me if I'm wrong. I only have two token books and have only recently begun any token identification.
Your question does not actually pertain to trade tokens, but to Civil War Store Card tokens. The state designation should precede the ID number, in this case MI for Michigan. The 225 is the city designation number, which may be used again in other states. In this case, 225 is the designator for both Durand, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan. The next letter (or two) is the merchant designation. Durand only had one merchant, so only had an "A" designation. Detroit had many merchants, the "AG" indicating the specific merchant of F. Gies. When merchant names were misspelled, they received a separate designation. In this case, related tokens include the "AF" (F. Geiss) and "AE" (F. Geis) merchant designations. The "3" indicates which of the varieties a token is of those known for a particular merchant. This is typically determined by the reverse die, but a variation of the obverse will also change the variety designator. In this case, there were two F. Gies obverses and 4 reverses, resulting in 5 obv/rev combinations. The 3 in the id you are asking about indicates the reverse die 1018 is paired with the 2nd obv., so the 1018 at the end of the id is unnecessary and normally not included. A dash always separates the merchant and variety designators. The last letter, which should always be lower case, is the metal designation. Third party graders erroneously show this letter in upper case, which typically is used to indicate a die variation. An "a" indicates copper was the metal used. "AG" tokens were made of copper, brass, and copper-nickel. 14 different metals were used in production of all cwts. Other variations for "AG" tokens are that the edge could be either reeded or plain. There are a total of 8 "AG" varieties. (1) R7, (2) R8s, (4) R9s and (1) R10. I have 2 of those varieties. George and Melvin Fuld were the authors of the "Bible" for Civil War token collectors. They wrote two definitive works, one for Civil War Store Cards and one for Patriotic tokens. They have likely owned more cwts than anyone, and even they did not have a complete collection of even one example from each of the 400 towns that issued cwts. The rarity scale goes from R1 (very common, over 5,000 known) to R10 (unique). An R8 rating indicates that between 5 and 10 are known to exist. These ratings are based on the assumption that approximately 1 million cwts are still in existence. There are about 14,000 cwt varieties, about 80% of which have known populations of 20 or less. Kanzinger's (from 2002) book prices the token in question at $20 in F/VF, $30 in XF, and $50 in UNC. Some quite scarce varieties have relatively low values when the merchant has many varieties and there are many other merchants from the same town.
