CIVIL WAR TOKENS PLUS
CIVIL WAR TOKENS SERIES

Bowers continued to be a major contributor to research and writing, for the Society and in other venues, while building a huge personalĬollection of Civil War tokens and buying and selling for his coin- dealership retail customers.Ī Dynamic New Publishing Era for Civil War Tokens Reed gained a new 'headquarters' for their work in the field, in particular in the The Civil War Token Society was chartered in 1967. It would be the first of many dozens - most of them best-sellers and standard references. Over the years the standard references by the Fulds were updated and revised in various newīowers wrote his first book, Coins and Collectors, in 1964. Numismatists publishedĪrticles in Numismatic News, Coin World, and other popular periodicals. Research into Civil War tokens continued, along with the study of encased postage stamps, Confederate currency, and other aspects of wartime money. Generations of players to the game through his beginner-level instruction books.) (Beyond numismatics, Reinfeld was a brilliant chess player who introduced Reed would later credit Reinfeld's book for capturing his imagination. Civil War Store Cards, produced by Whitman Publishing.įred Reinfeld's 93-page The Story of Civil War Money (Sterling Publishing Co., 1959), although not comprehensive, piqued further interest among history buffs. In the early 1960s the Fulds brought into the world theīooks Patriotic Civil War Tokens and U.S. Had grown up from student to teacher, and he and his father researched and wrote about Civil War tokens through the 1950s. and his father Melvin, by that time well established as experts in the field.

CIVIL WAR TOKENS PLUS

Bowers recalls how his education in the field came from a single volume published more than 30 yearsĮarlier ( Civil War Tokens and Tradesmen's Cards, by George Hetrich and Julius Guttag, 1924), plus the occasional article in The Numismatist and other periodicals,Īuction-lot descriptions, and, importantly, the personal guidance of hobby mentors.Īmong the latter Bowers counted the research team of Fuld and Fuld - son George J. Than Abraham Lincoln, and nowhere near as tall - though just as fascinating. David Bowers was just getting started as a numismatic force of nature, the hobby's literature on Civil War tokens was still thinner That was the extent of the overview in the earliest editions of the Red Book.īy the 1960s, with a new boom of interest in all things numismatic, that coverage would be expanded with more narrative and a type-table list of values by metallic A large majority of theĬivil War tokens are about the same size as the present day one-cent piece.' Some 15,000 different varieties have been discovered, all of which are more or less common. either of political or advertising nature. hoarded by the public and millions of privately coined tokens were placed in circulation,' the Red Book informed its readers.

Civil War tokens made the grade, but without much fanfare, being tucked into a few

CIVIL WAR TOKENS SERIES

'Red Book' meant a die variety or a series was part of the established numismatic world. First published in 1946, the Guide Book quickly became the most popular annual reference in the hobby, and its contents carried great weight. His conversations with two collectors at the 1947 American Numismatic Association convention sparked a lifelong interest in an unusual and intriguing field:Īt the time, these tokens were mentioned 'but just barely' in the Guide Book of United States Coins, Whitman Publishing's retail price catalog and numismatic historyīook. Fuld was first bitten by the coin-collecting bug (as were many other Americans, during a boom in hobby interest that started in the

Once Obscure, American Civil War Tokens Now Take the Spotlight Dennis Tucker of Whitman Publishing submitted this article. The updated and revised third edition of the Guide Book of Civil War Tokens will debut in October 2018.

Civil war tokens