Confederate States of America Civil War traders' tokens.

Here's a section that will be of interest to the U.S. Civil War traders' token collectors.It is about the tokens issued by traders in the Confederate States of America.How does one distinguish these from the U.S. issues? Are they like the Indian Head Cent design,but replacing the Stars & Stripes with the Stars & Bars? If so,then these would be the closest things to circulating coins that the Confederate States of America ever had.

Aidan.

 

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I believe thear are only one or two civil war tokens that were issued in the Confederacy. Almost all of them were issued by merchants in the north.

The Confederacy did strike coins at New Orleans, Charlotte, and Dahlonaga. The problem is they struck them from Union dies which makes them almost impossible to tell apart.

The only one that we definitely know came from the Confederacy was the 1861-D gold dollar because the Union did not strike any before the mint was captured. There were also 1861-D half eagles struck but I think they were all struck by the Union.

Charolotte struck 6,879 half eagles in 1861 but only 887 of them were struck by the Confederates.

New orleans struck 2,991 double eagles for the Confederates, but at this time we can't tell them from the Union or State of Louisiana coins. Then we come to the half dollars. 2,532,633 coins. 330,000 for the Union, 1,240,000 for the State of Louisiana, and 962,633 for the Confederacy. Thanks to indepth die varity study and the determination of the die chaning and emmision sequence, we CAN tell which coins were struck for the Confederacy.

 

Confederate Civil War token issues:

Seven states seceded by February 1861:

South Carolina (December 20, 1860) - no tokens
Mississippi (January 9, 1861) - no tokens
Florida (January 10, 1861) - no tokens
Alabama (January 11, 1861) - 1 city, 1 merchant, 32 varieties
Georgia (January 19, 1861) - no tokens
Louisiana (January 26, 1861) - no tokens
Texas (February 1, 1861) - no tokens


After Lincoln called for troops, four more states seceded:

Virginia (April 17, 1861); there was also a rump Union government of Virginia - 1 city, 1 merchant, 1 variety
Arkansas (May 6, 1861) - no tokens
Tennessee (May 7, 1861) - 5 cities, 14 merchants, 125 varieties
North Carolina (May 20, 1861) - no tokens


Two more states had rival (or rump) governments. The Confederacy admitted them but they never controlled their states and were soon in exile:

Missouri (October 31, 1861) - 3 cities, 5 merchants, 25 varieties
Kentucky (November 20, 1861) - 5 towns, 7 merchants, 79 varieties


A side comment concerning towns issueing Civil War tokens, Fuld attributes 1973 varieties to Cincinnati, which are more than even any state total (excepting Ohio of course). New York City was a distant second place at 1076 varieties, followed by Detroit at 709, then Milwaukee at 161.

 

That's very interesting.

Aidan.

 

Cwtokenman,did you find any traders' tokens that were issued in the Confederate States of America in the end? If you did,can you please post some photos?

Aidan.

 

Would also love to see a CSA Token if you have any in your collection :bow:

De Orc :thumb:

 

For what it is worth, thanks to Sherman, Grant and Lincoln, there never was a Conferderate States of America, thank god. The blood spilled to asure that such a racist state never was allowed to materialize, and in affect ending the raicst institution of Salervy in North America and paving the way for universal sufferage and freedom was made with a terrible sacrifice to the nation. I'm sure the smilely that was put in front of this title was not ment to be as offensive as it can be viewed. But lets all be glad that those racist SOBs who rebelled from the Union and allowed for the bloodiest chapter in our history was faced by that great man in Abraham Lincoln, and that they died a bloody death, and not soon enough.

Ruben

 

Ruben this is a discusion on the tokens of the CSA and not the politics of that Institution, please keep it that way.

Steve aka De Orc:kewl:

Ps would just like to add I have no disagreement with Rubens sentiments but please in the appropriate forum.

 

Ruben;

I could not agree more with your sentiment or have summed it up better myself. This hobby, like others lends itself to collecting items that could be rather sensitive.

As Steve points out - that discussion belongs in a different section.

I expect as you stated that the smile was a way to show excitement about the hobby of collecting and learning.

There are many in this group that are real educators. Sharing this knowledge about the coins and a little history that goes with it. For the young and old, there is much to learned beyond the coins. :thumb:

Best Regards

Darryl

 

Steve - I also agree with you as I am sure most will. This forum is about the coins, not the politics of the institution. As long as it stays that way people can enjoy the forum for what it was meant for. Happily the moderators always have a way to keep it that way and that's what makes this site a nice site to spend time on :thumb:

 

Alrighty---as it has already been said---this topic isn't for that type of talk---take it to the GD Forum.

Speedy
Moderator

 

Getting back to the topic....

I take it then that there were no political CWT issued by the Confederacy. Or only that they aren't listed above because the thread doesn't involve them. If so, were there some political tokens?

 

Now that is a good observation, after all there are many with political messages on originating from the Union side :bow:

De Orc :kewl:

 

acanthite, I think that Aidens topic covers just about any coin/token issued in the confederate states.?.

I think Conder101 covered the coins meant to replace the union currency (?) and cwtokenman covered the trader tokens issued by merchants in the confederate and some union states. My wife keeps telling me she wants some of tokens/coins from this period. In the Red book there is a couple pages on the topic. She tells me that older versions of the red book have more information. I will have to buy an older version to read up more on the topic.

I would also love to see any examples of either coin or tokens out there in the group.

 

There were political tokens issued for the south as well. I believe most, if not all of them were produced by Northern diesinkers who were sympathetic to the Southern cause. There were not many of them, perhaps a dozen different dies at most. They would have legends such as "Wealth of the South/Rice, Tobacco, Sugar, Cotton" or "No Submission to the North". There were also some pacifist type tokens as well among the Patriotic series.

Slavery was really not a major issue as far as touching off the Civil War, and that is reflected in that only one cwt die mentions slavery - die 36 with the legend "Liberty and No Slavery". Considering that there are over 500 patriotic dies, and hundreds, likely thousands of custom storecard dies, that is barely a mention. There were other patriotic ideals that were mentioned far more often.

These Southern tokens tend to all be rare and rather pricey. I have one "Wealth of the South" token that is really not too hot, and rather dark, so I am not sure how well it will appear in a picture. The typical "common" variety of the "Wealth of the South" and "No Submission to the North" has an R8 rating, which means there are 5 to 10 known. An inexpensive low grade one lists for about $300, but they bring closer to $400-$500 on ebay. They go wayyyyy up from there.

As far as storecards, I have one from Covington, Kentucky; a St. Louis Missouri; and a Dedham, Tennessee. Dedham is a very tough town, rating a T8 on the town rarity scale (which goes from 1 to 10, but there are no 10s). I would have to check, but I am pretty sure that one is holed, and I was happy to pick it up for a couple hundred bucks. With these, passing on a less than perfect specimen could mean you blew the only shot at that variety in your lifetime.

My son just bought a new scanner, but hasn't hooked it up yet, and my digital camera is worthless for coin photos. I'll pester him about getting it hooked up and will post some pics here when I am able (will have to figure that out too, as my past attempts were unsuccessful).

 

That is not historically true and so they nuimastic inference must be rethought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown's_Body

 

I don't collect these token actively but once in a while I add some of these historical items in my collection.

Below are two 1863 dated Civil War Tokens I added recently in my collection.

The Flag of Our Union ->


First in War, First in Peace ->


Hope some of you will enjoy viewing these.

Regards
Ballabh Garg

 

Ballabh,those are very nice U.S. tokens,but this section is in relation to those issued by the Confederate States of America.

Aidan.

 

Nice tokens Bgarg I have a couple myself must dig them out and scan them LOL, 'CW' it was certainly a bit of a eye opener when you said only one mentioned slavery, of course I knew that the presivation of the union was rather important to the North and State rights to the south but I had expected more!

De Orc :kewl:

 

Steve,are they C.S.A. issues though?

Aidan.