Early Photographic Gallery Token – Raymond’s Photograph Gallery. 1863

Shown here is an 1863 token for Raymond’s Photograph Gallery in Detroit, Michigan. Although not in great condition, I acquired this particular token because it advertises a gallery instead of a specific artist-photographer.

Tokens from Raymond's gallery are relatively rare and have an Indian-head on the obverse instead of the more common eagle and Lady Liberty designs.

Civil war era tokens pertaining to photographic merchants are uncommon and are nifty ‘go-alongs’ with my collection of pre-1900 American wood and brass cameras. They are fascinating bits of history because the earliest galleries advertised using 'broadsides' (small posters) and coin-like tokens.

James F. Raymond started as a daguerreotypist in 1850 and eventually became the proprietor for Moses Sutton’s gallery at 205 Jefferson in 1861. The gallery had several photographers and was well equipped with a variety of apparatus including a mammoth camera, duplicating card equipment, etc. The gallery could produce imperial, cabinet and life size photographs.

Raymond had a long career and owned various Detroit studio-galleries through 1870. He finished his career in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a photographer from 1872 to 1877. He died in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1906.