Two 1863 Civil War trade tokens | ||
| Civil War Tokens2 of 21 |  |  |
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Posted 4 years ago
flashlarue
(272 items)
With a scarcity of money during the Civil War trade tokens became popular. These are two such tokens. The Indian head was common on many of the tokens while the flag is a bit more unusual.
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The "Union" was broke and businesses had to resort to tokens because there was no hard currency. These actually can bring good money.
The term "DIX" seems strange to me, as the term "Dixie" is derived from Dix, which was based on a French term for 10, which was the strongest money in the Americas at the time. The origin is from a French banque in New Orleans and the preferred stable currency at the time. The South relied heavily on European trade and the South held 80-85% of the wealth of the "States" when the CW broke out. The Federal currency was much less stable at the time, so businesses issued tokens to "take up the slack" of the weak Federal $. In other words, they didn't have change.