~RARE~ CW Store card Dr. Bennett's Medicine

[Goes4ever]

I went out this from at 8am and hunted till 10am, before I had to go to the family thanksgiving dinner. I went back to a corn field site I have been working on last 3 days, corn stalks and weeds are a mess....but I have gotten a few cool finds, so keep going back. It was almost time for me to go, had 15 minutes left, and I got a sweet 12-45 signal, bouncing to 12-47. I was hoping for silver, but was Pleasantly surprised when I saw the small green disk in the dirt. I thought why did this ring up so high?? I wiped some dirt away and could see some writing on it, so I figured I had a token.

I got home and googled it and found out it was indeed a Civil War Store card....however I could locate my variety on google images, or the search option either one. So I went to the king site of tokens. Richard's token database, and there it was!
http://tokencatalog.com/token_record_forms.php?action=DisplayTokenRecord&td_id=321173&inventory_id=291487&td_image_id=155842&attribution_id=327606&td_create_uid=252&record_offset=6

It is listed as a R-5 as the rarity level, I wasn't sure what that meant it, so I googled that...lol and found that:
R-5 Rare (31-75 known to exist)....sweet!

Now I didn't clean it other than taking a toothpick to pick away the dirt, I am kinda leary about cleaning now seeing it is fairly rare. So as for now, I am leaving it as it is.

 

[mike4663]

Sweet find, store cards are great finds. It would be cool to research the doc.

 

[Goes4ever]

Sweet find, store cards are great finds. It would be cool to research the doc.

from what google said he was born in 1838, and lived till 1930 and the token was from cincinnati, ohio

 

[Sooper Dave]

Incredible token! What is it made of? Way to go on such a rare and unique find!

 

[AgIA]

That's an awesome Thanksgiving treat!

 

[Mark in S.E. IA]

WTG terry on the cool find.

It would be nice if you could find out what kind of value it has....

 

[Goes4ever]

Incredible token! What is it made of? Way to go on such a rare and unique find!

Dont know for sure, but guessing it is bronze, exact diameter and thickness of an indian.

 

[bunker314]

Now that is cool!
Love finding tokens!
Bunker

 

[AgIA]

So is this an example of one of the tokens issued by merchants to fill the lack of cent currency during the civil war? I was just reading an article in Numismatic News about how the change over to the bronze cent occurred and it kind of seems to fit given the size and composition.

 

[Goes4ever]

So is this an example of one of the tokens issued by merchants to fill the lack of cent currency during the civil war? I was just reading an article in Numismatic News about how the change over to the bronze cent occurred and it kind of seems to fit given the size and composition.

By 1862, the second year of the Civil War, government-issued coinage began vanishing from circulation. American citizens hoarded all coins with gold and silver, and eventually began hoarding copper-nickel cents as well. This made it extremely difficult for businesses to conduct transactions. In response, many merchants turned to private minters to fill the void left by the hoarded coins. The first of these privately minted tokens appeared in the autumn of 1862, by H. A. Ratterman, in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is estimated that by 1864, there were 25,000,000 Civil War tokens (nearly all redeemable for one cent) in circulation, consisting of approximately 7,000

 

[MikeO]

Pretty cool find for sure.


I found this one about 13 years ago.
This one is OH-165N-9A
Slightly older and different variety.
[attachment 249828 DrB.jpg]

Wait until you find one that was a R-10 and then you make it an R-9

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Love the token Goes! Nice!

 

[niterider_58]

AWESOME TOKEN

 

[Dale(Ia)]

NICE find!!!!! Love those Civil War storecard's!
Iowa Dale

 

[badjim]

VERY sweet token

 

[Cutaplug]

Congrats on such a rare and awesome find! Better than a silver coin IMO =)