I was a dealer for about 16 years. One of my "side specialties" was Civil War tokens. I always had about 500 of them in stock. I found this variety interesting (Fuld 83/264a) interesting, but it was hard to find one without damage. It's rated as an R-4, which is only moderately scarce. It's also thick, like the cents of the period although it's made of copper. The brass ones are listed but are rated R-8 which is quite rare. I never saw one. The obvious question was, who was going to pay the bearer? That remains a mystery because it can't be attributed to a specific merchant. I am sitting here waiting for the electricity to go out here in Florida. It will eventually.
Great question, I always wondered about that myself. The merchant tokens of course provided a place to redeem them at but patriotic tokens were a different animal. I suppose the bearer just had to shop them around to find a taker. Another question. Who actually paid the cost to have them struck? Bruce
The merchants who issued them paid for most of the patriotic pieces. Some were issued for political purposes, but if they mention a specific candidate, like Lincoln, they are scarcer to rarer. The merchants needed these pieces to make change and do business in general. The Union Government issued cents were hoarded until after the war. If you wanted them, you had to pay a premium. 20% seemed to be the going rate. Edited to say the merchants made a profit from them if they were accepted as cents. It cost less than a dollar to buy 100 of them.
Thanks for your reply. The reason for merchants issuing them is still odd as they didn't identify themselves. Just an effort to provide customers with change I suppose. I had a small but high grade collection of them some years back but had to sell them to pay bills. Some were nicely toned and I had about half a dozen brockages. Wish I still had it but.... Bruce
There is a story, now debunked, about a New York City merchant who issued tens of thousands of tokens. A street car company took large numbers of them and presented them to him for redemption. He just laughed. The story is fiction, but it illustrates the point. Some of the rarest CTWs are the “good for” tokens which could be traded for goods or services. My theory is that the merchants destroyed most of them after the “good for” promotion was finished. You usually don’t have to redeem that which can’t be traced.
I imagine the merchants got them for less than a cent each, so by giving them out as change it was a win win situation.
I’ve read the price was something like 65 cents per hundred. Most, but not all CWTs were lighter than the U.S. Government cents.