Civil War Tokens

CIVIL WAR PATRIOTIC TOKENS, SUTLER TOKENS (EXONUMIA) AND STORE CARDS:
Regular issue US coinage was hoarded during the Civil War restricting merchants ability to make small change. Some merchants had tokens made to give out as change in their stores. If you ordered the least expensive tokens you would receive a combination of two existing dies, usually of a patriotic nature or similar to a US cent, these are called Civil War Patriotic Tokens. Civil War Sutler Tokens were a special kind of Store Card that was issued by sutlers who supplied the Union Army. If you had more to spend you could have one or two dies custom made for you with information specific to your business (i.e. location, occupation, specialties, etc.) these are Civil War Store Cards. RARITY RATINGS:
The rarity scale for Civil War tokens is listed below. Most collectors collect by town, merchant or die. Very few try to get one of each die combination and metal composition. So value is determined more by supply and demand than by individual rarity. Additionally, more than a few pieces have incorrect rarity ratings (both over and under rated) in current references due to outdated information, hoards, mistakes or typo's.

EVALUATION: It is very difficult to evaluate Civil War Tokens because it is estimated that over 25 million Civil War tokens were produced, with over 8500 distinct types catalogued. If you evaluate the condition by determining the approximate grade, you can decide if it is worth getting it graded by one of the major Grading companies such as PCGS or NGC. This will confirm authenticity, preserve the Token, set the grade and increase value.

R1 Very Common more than 5,000 estimated	R6 Very Scarce 20 to 74 estimated to exist
R2 Common 2,000 to 4,999 estimated to exist	R7 Rare 10 to 19 estimated to exist
R3 500 to 1,999 estimated to exist	R8 Very Rare 5 to 9 estimated to exist
R4 200 to 499 estimated to exist	R9 Extremely Rare 2 to 4 estimated to exist
R5 Scarce 75 to 199 estimated to exist	R10 Unique only one estimated to exist

COMPOSITION OF CIVIL WAR TOKENS:
Civil War tokens were manufactured in a number of different metallic compositions as well as rubber. In the cataloging of these tokens the composition is indicated by a lower case letter at the end of the Fuld number. The following is a
list of the codes used.

a Copper	g Lead
b Brass	h Hard Rubber
c Nickel ( actually German Silver)	i Zinc ( actually Tin Plated)
d Copper-Nickel	j German Silver
e White Metal	k Gilt
f Silver	m Tin (Usually plated brass)

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