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Message:: [QUOTE="cwtokenman, post: 475188, member: 2100"]Your Washington Tax token has a very long and interesting story that goes with it. I will touch on the highlights. Its id is WA-S12, it has an R-2 rarity, so is slightly more desirable than most. This variety of token was produced from 1946-51 by the Metal Products Manufacturing Company, but mintage is unknown. The following is a paraphrase from "United States Sales Tax Tokens and Stamps: A History and Catalog" by Merlin K. Malehorn and Tim Davenport. The state of Washington was the first to issue sales tax tokens. As with the initiation of many new innovations, there were many obstacles to overcome before things would run smoothly. While the token system was used here for nearly 16 years (one of the longest periods for any state), legal and production problems were present from the beginning.  Washington passed the Revenue Act of 1935 which began the tax token saga on March 25, 1935. The Act was passed to combat a large deficit which came about because of declining property values and a tax delinquency rate of over 30%. (Wow, sounds a bit like modern times!!!) The legislation provided for a 2% tax to help fund the state's schools and government, and  was to take effect on May 1, 1935. In blazing a new trail, the State Tax Commission ordered 2 million tokens from the Metal Products Manufacturing Company, with half of the order put on the books for a later delivery date. However, when the first day of issue came about, only 600,000 tokens had been delivered, a woefully inadequate number for the needs of commerce. A severe shortage resulted, with merchants unsure of how to comply with the law in collecting tax on small purchases. State authorities were also confused and of little help. One state official remarked that there was "no objection to any reasonable system that may be worked out" to collect the tax. Another official provided the ambiguous directive that "good common sense" be used in application of the tax". Tokens were promised in a week to 10 days, with interim permission for individual stores to issue their own tokens. Needless to say, with such vague guidelines, different merchants reacted in different fashions in their interpretation as to comply. In addition to the tremendous token shortage problem, legal suits were brought against the state making charges ranging from discrimination to that the token program itself was illegal as an unconstitutional coining of money by the state. As cases were decided, appeals were made, keeping the issue in the works of the legal system. In the meantime, tokens were being made and put into circulation at the rate of about 125,000 per day. The manufacturer delivered them in paper sacks, unrolled and unboxed. A critical shortage remained. On May 14th, due to many angry complaints by merchants, the three person State Tax Commission decided to issue emergency cardboard tax token scrip to stave the shortage until a sufficient quantity of aluminum tokens could be made, The state's 5 lithography firms were commissioned to produce some 5 million pieces of blue scrip. This issue was placed into circulation on May 16. This was not enough. Two million more were made and released 4 days later. A new press was installed by the 1st of June which upped production of the aluminum tokens to 250,000 per day. 3.5 million aluminum tokens had been made by this time. On July 13, 1935, 5 million more aluminum tokens were ordered. The State Tax Commission records have been destroyed, so the details are not known, but there was also a second series of emergency scrip, denoted as "Series C" and printed on yellow cardstock. Details of this series remain a mystery. The legal battles were continuing, and on July 15, the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury got into the act, declaring that the manufacture of state sales tax tokens was regarded  as an unconstitutional issuance of money by the state. State Tax Commissioner T.M. Jenner responded by saying that the state would cease to issue tokens only as a result of a court injunction. Much was going on, and in the end, Washington state was given the green light for issuing tokens. About 60 million of the first type of aluminum tokens were issued. These tokens were sometimes called "Martinettes" as the practice started during the administration of Governor Clarence D. Martin. On May 1, 1941, the tax rated was bumped from 2% to 3%. Outstanding aluminum tokens were to be redeemed. Industry demands caused aluminum to be in short supply during this transition period. Plastic tokens were favored, but not immediately available. Vulcanized cotton fiber was selected. The low relief and hard material resulted in a high percentage of even uncirculated tokens to be virtually illegible. August, 1942 sees a switch to a more legible holed fiber token. This transition period brought more token shortages, and many localities issued their own tokens. By August, 1946, aluminum was available once again, and a return to that metal was made. On March 8, 1951, it was decided to end the use of the token system in Washington, effective on the first day of the following month. A switch to a bracket system of tax collection was instituted. A redemption program was set up to redeem outstanding tokens, with payment based upon weight of the tokens and ended on June 30, 1951. While some of the redeemed tokens may have been sold for scrap, approximately 100,000 (about 285 pounds) were buried for future treasure hunters somewhere on the slope below the capitol greenhouse in Olympia, according to the testimony of Mark Aspinwall, a long time state tax official.[/QUOTE]

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