This fixed price catalog of Mint State Pioneer Minor Coinage is the product of years of picky buying and acquiring token collections. We went after uncirculated tokens, saloon tokens and great rarities. Some rarities were offered in our last catalog, “A Treasure Chest of Rare and Collectible Pioneer Minor Coinage.” This catalog centers upon the uncirculated pieces as graded by Numismatic Guarantee Corporation (NGC). These are also among the great rarities because of condition. There has never been an offering of this magnitude of Mint State (MS-60 plus) tokens. Until now, in fact, few tokens have been graded by any grading service.

The numismatic field has moved toward a condition sensitive market. The field of trade tokens, officially called Pioneer Minor Coinage by the Government at one point, is the last of the major collecting categories in numismatics to advance to grading standards. Our firm has led the way, but we are very sensitive to price, condition and rarity issues. Each of the sub fields of numismatics to advance to grading standards proceeded slowly with strong opposition from old-time collectors. Gradually, the market accepted, and later demanded, grading. As a current example, we sold the Bill Weber Collection of So-Called Dollars and $50 slug facsimiles in December 2008. More than half of the collection was certified and graded by NGC, and those condition census pieces sold for record amounts, clearly demonstrating the lust of advanced collectors to own the “best” specimen with the highest grade. Pioneer minor coinage will move in this direction also, but it will take time. While this firm has processed more than 15,000 pieces, only about ten percent were eligible for grading, while the remainder consisted of “dug” pieces or those with environmental damage.  Of those graded, less than 10 percent are Mint State.

Today we cannot necessarily say with certainty that we are offering the “finest known piece,” although currently it may be the finest piece known thus far, as graded by NGC.

General Notes on Rarity and Hoards

Western mint state tokens in general are exceptionally rare. One of the first things a Pioneer Minor Coinage collector thinks when they see a mint state token is the word “hoard.” It’s true that some of the mint state Western tokens known today come from hoards. These hoards (more than 20 uncirculated pieces) were generally kept in the family of the original proprietor, handed down from generation to generation. Examples of these hoards include the Wiedeville, Texas tokens, the Pastime Club from Wendover, Nevada, the Idaho Saloon of Skagway, the Nevada Bar of Fairbanks, Alaska, the W.W. Kelly of Colton, California, and the Southern Hotel from Bakersfield.

Although there is no defined standard amount consituting a “hoard,” there are many groups of Western tokens that were considered “hoards” but probably are not, since they contain fewer than 20 pieces or so. Most of these smaller groups may have contained up to ten pieces of uncirculated tokens, but the rest were circulated. The result is most of the so-called “hoards” of uncirculated tokens are rarely that: uncirculated. They are usually groups of tokens that consist of circulated and almost uncirculated pieces.

Our mission over the last three years was to find as many uncirculated pieces as we could. It was also to locate and obtain the great rarities, particularly fine specimens of these great rarities. Naturally we started with Western material, which is the greater part of our market based here in California and Nevada. Having known Western collectors for more than 30 years and being actively involved in the collecting of tokens for the same period, I knew many of the sources of these hoards and purchased them. A number of people sold portions of the original hoards over the decades; in general we were able to find those that still existed. In only three cases the number of old Western tokens in uncirculated condition was greater than 100 pieces in any single hoard. Other such hoards may have existed at one time, but have long since been disbursed. For the most part the uncirculated groups were limited to a handful of specimens retained by the original merchant’s family.

Mint state tokens from Southwest mining camps and ghost towns are exceedingly rare. Most of the known tokens are dug. Some are from slot machine hoards that were discarded in old municipal dumps, only to be discovered one hundred years later by bottle diggers and metal detector enthusiasts. A Western mint state token is thus very rare, and would have been saved or collected by someone at the time the town or mining camp was in operation.

Collecting Mint State Pioneer Minor Coinage

Few collectors have tried to collect mint state pieces until now. The token collecting field is still in its infancy, and as avid coin collectors advance to Pioneer Minor Coinage (tokens), condition has and will become a collecting and discriminating factor. But until now, it has not. In the past, collectors were happy just to have the piece in any condition.

Pioneer Minor Coinage in general is rare on a piece-by-piece basis. Token collectors used to think that a piece with ten to twenty known was “common,” but today there are far more collectors than previously, so what was once considered common is no longer.

Some of the great rarities offered here come from what must have been an early collection assembled before 1900. The collection contains pieces other than Moise and they are generally from California. In many cases some of the original tokens held by merchant families were uncirculated, but today would grade AU because they were handled so much during the “show and tell” process to friends and family over the past century. While I feel it might perhaps be unfair to designate these pieces as AU, they most likely never were circulated. It is thus arguable that many of the Western tokens today graded as MS 55 or MS 58 may never have been circulated. This catalog, however, only contains those tokens that made the MS 60-plus grade. One issue with some of the groups of “uncirculated” tokens is that they have been tampered with by numismatists in order to “preserve” their uncirculated state or to enhance their appearance. For the most part, when any professional grading service looks at these tokens under a binocular microscope, the altered surfaces are apparent, and the piece goes into a “genuine” holder. Thus the original uncirculated count or “population” becomes even lower.

Pricing

The pricing of graded mint state Pioneer Minor Coinage is a difficult task. There are few comparable sales, and the field is new. We have experimented with pricing concepts over the past year, and based on current market conditions came up with a chart that we used consistently for this catalog and our extensive inventory. This chart is based on several concepts:

A) The piece is rated as a common to scarce coin, regardless of condition.

B) We know that the piece in circulated condition is common, versus those that are rated common or rated inexpensively in specific state collecting guides, but in reality is not common. For example, most state guides were published in the 1980s, when collecting was a whole different ball game. These guides gave no premium to rare pieces from common towns; thus if a state guide only used monetary amounts instead of a rarity rating, common and rare tokens from common towns had the same value, which is horribly misleading with regard to rarity.

C) We applied the same relative rules of mathematics to these pieces as were applied to Morgan Dollars. This applies a relatively simple linear scale for advanced grades of coins, with a jump in price at MS63, which is a key grade jump for coins. There is a statistical concept that rarity increases exponentially with advanced condition from MS 60 to MS 68, the highest grade any token has received so far from NGC. Collector demand will later determine if the price scale should be exponential, matching the rarity scale.

D) The minimum price point was determined on a cost basis for certified coins. It cost $x to certify, $y to prepare and ship coins, and $z to process the material in a low-cost professional office. This price is approximately $40.

The chart we established is thus:

AU55, $60

AU58, $70

MS60, $80

MS61, $90

MS62, $100

As might be expected, there are few pioneer minor coins that make the MS63 grade. The number graded so far above MS65 can practically be held in one hand. The market will eventually change this price schedule, up or down with demand. We made this schedule to preemptively avoid the problems of the Civil War token market, where prices shot up too fast for gem material.

The pricing of rare pieces in uncirculated condition is subjective, and has a lot to do with age, history, overall rarity, regional demand, eye appeal, topical demand and other factors. As a general statement, a general merchandise store piece will never be worth what a saloon piece is worth, even though both are gem uncirculated. Exceptions occur for rarities such as single tokens from single towns such as the T. E. Bangs piece from Seven Troughs, Nevada. Pieces of this nature will always be worth a significant premium.

Population

No discussion of the value of coins in any category is complete without a discussion of the population of known pieces. As of this writing, NGC’s database of Pioneer Minor Coinage contains fewer than 20,000 pieces. Probably fewer than 150 total pieces have been graded MS 63 and above. MS 65 pieces number under 100, and MS66, MS67 and MS68 pieces number below twenty total pieces. This well illustrates the extreme rarity of high grade uncirculated pieces.

Important Notes

There are some important stories about Western Pioneer Minor Coinage that need discussion. Among these is the anomaly of uncirculated tokens that still exist made by the L. H. Moise Co. of San Francisco around the 1895-1905 period. Another is a discussion of the Anillo restrike tokens, which offer a rare opportunity to acquire nearly one-of-a-kind pieces.

Moise Tokens

This catalog contains a number of uncirculated pieces made by prominent diesinker L. H. Moise. Moise worked for C.A. Klinkner since at least the 1880s. When Klinkner died in 1893 Moise started his own company and later bought the Klinkner Company in 1897 from Klinkner’s descendants. Moise apparently saved one or more of every token he ever made including perhaps a few gem Klinkner pieces. While this was not that unusual, the collection stayed together until after World War II. At some point the family sold the collection to a mid-Western coin collector who reportedly died in the 1960s. The Moise collection was offered intact to numerous token dealers at the time but nobody wanted the whole thing since it consisted of thousands of different tokens from Western states. Eventually, the collection was broken up and sold to numerous dealers or collectors. Over the years many of these wonderful pieces have dribbled out, mostly being placed into major Western state collections. In time I noticed the anomaly of the uncirculated Moise tokens and quietly began accumulating them. In the last two years I have spoken with many of the major American token dealers and was able to extract this story.

Few other Western token manufacturer collections survive. One such collection is present in a popular San Francisco restaurant. A small group of tokens from the Patrick & Co. (direct competetors to L.H. Moise) and some unmarked pieces which may have also been from the Patrick & Co. recently turned up at a flea market in the San Francisco Bay Area. In each of the last two collections every token was nailed to a board. We were lucky enough to acquire part of the latter collection, all in uncirculated condition, though all secondarily holed. A few unholed uncirculated Patrick & Co. pieces have been discovered, but the original source is unkown.

Anillo Restrikes (Ah-nill’-oh)

A number of the mint state pieces in this catalog are Anillo restrikes. A restrike is defined as a numismatic item produced from original dies at a later date.  An Anillo restrike is a uniface (one-sided) restrike of an original pioneer minor coin on an aluminum planchet made by Anillo Industries in Orange, California in 1968.  Anillo Industries purchased the coining dies from the Los Angeles Stamp and Stationery Company (formerly Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Co.) at public auction in 1967 with plans to go into the token and medal manufacturing business. The President of Anillo Industries, William Koch, ordered a restrike of approximately 3,500 dies for three major reasons: 1) to catalogue the dies 2) to determine which dies could be re-used; and 3) to create sample books for salesmen. The Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Company had been making dies for token manufacture since about 1890 and most of the dies used for the restrikes were from Southern California businesses. A number of restrikes are also from Nevada and Arizona, particularly for pieces from the 1930s through the 1950s.  

Apparently the idea for sample binders for salesmen was scrapped when the project proved to be too laborious. Instead, 22 sets were reportedly planned for office use only, taking one worker about five months to complete. The blank reverses were made flat so the restrikes would better adhere to catalog pages and it was rumored that only four catalogs were ever completed. It has been reported on the Internet that the sets sold for approximately $150 each, but we have never verified this. Over the past thirty years, we have never seen one of the catalogs and have been unable to locate any of the four originals, if they exist. We have seen one original batch of approximately 3500 pieces, but it is unknown if the batch was picked through over the past forty years. Regardless, it may be the only original (or nearly so) group of Anillo pieces remaining intact.

Eventually the restrikes were sold to numismatists, token collectors and anyone interested in the pieces, including employees of the Anillo firm. The Anillo pieces offered a number of previously unknown tokens in all three states – California, Arizona and Nevada. While most of the tokens appear to post-date Prohibition, a few choice pieces from the early days of the L.A. Rubber Stamp Co. are found in Anillo restrikes. Among the best is the Gem Saloon with a prize for the biggest (a picture of a rooster). To my knowledge this circa 1900-1905 piece has not been found with the town/state obverse intact. The Anillo restrikes also offer a large number of amusement, gaming machine, novelty, park or theme festival tokens, many of which I’ve never seen before.

Self-identified Anillo obverses of tokens that show city and state are far rarer than reverses. We had a chance to go through the 3500 pieces recently and I’d guess that about 600 had good token obverses. That’s not to say that there were not another 500 or so obverses, but many are not self-identified, just like with other tokens of all kinds. We have a few pieces in this catalog that are unidentified and have been placed at the end of the California section.

Many collectors have shied away from Anillo restrike tokens because they are just that- not the original piece. But more often, as advanced collectors find out that these tokens are the only chance they’ll ever get to acquire unique pieces, the collector ends up getting the piece. In every case we know of, the collectors are happy they made the acquisition.

Prices of Anillo Restrikes

The prices of Anillo tokens have no standard value to date. We have seen Anillo tokens available for $1 to $5 each in singles and quantity (not of the same piece), inclusive of reverses which are far less collectible. The great material, or the very early token obverses, remain in high demand, and are seldom seen. The rarity factor must be discussed here also. We do not really know how many tokens were struck from each die of each variety (Kappen’s interview stated 22 were made, but they may not have struck the same number from each die). A further complication is how many are left in existence, since many must have been thrown away over the years. Thus there is and can be no certain population of specific pieces known. Most of the unique pieces were and have been buried away in state or local collections. In 2009 we have sold a large number of these older restrikes of which little has been known, with few described in state token books or references.

The best material with pizzazz and eye appeal sells by our company for about $150-250 each. This includes the unlisted state obverses of or from the older period (Pre-Prohibition). The plain reverses that are uncertified continue to sell at the less than $10 level, though those that have been certified as original or with an MS grade are usually $40. This takes into account that the token is original, and that the cost to certify eats up much of that price.

Many of the Anillo pieces, which once clearly were uncirculated, have sat in drawers and bowls for years, acquiring wear. Thus the untouched material is of premium grade and often is worth more to collectors who collect higher-grade material, though they will probably never be worth the same as authentic self-identified pieces.  (Ref: California Tokens by Charles Kappen, 1976, xxiii; Fred Holabird notes of conversations with Randy Briggs, Steve Alpert, Ron Lerch, Alan Weinberg and others.)

Indian Traders Trade Tokens

The expansion of the West into Indian lands created the need for military forts for protection of settlers. As military forts and trading posts sprang up all over the Western frontier during the late 1800s, so did competition with outside merchants and civilian whiskey traders. Commercial enterprises arose to facilitate trade between Indians and settlers. Some of the traders were located inside forts (post traders) and others just outside the forts, and some traders established posts in areas away from forts when dealing with friendly tribes (Indian Traders).

Soon the trading posts were dealing in every type of merchandise imaginable from clothing, household goods and booze to axel grease, hardware and ammunition. Typical trading posts also boasted of Indian goods made by local tribes, particularly rugs, baskets and pottery. One advertisement from a Post Trader at Fort Richardson in the late 1800s read [we carry] “Everything to fill up - A general assortment of goods suited to the necessities of frontier life.”

Indian Trading Posts were quite common in most of the Western States. States such as Arizona, New Mexico and Alaska had numerous traders who issued and used tokens regularly.

To remain profitable and maintain a stable economic position, an aggressive trader did business with local Indian tribes. By 1870 almost every military post was accessible to at least one or more Indian tribes. Competitive traders quickly realized that trade with the local Indians was often more lucrative than regular trader business. This was because there was no price control over goods sold to the Indians and prices were regulated by supply and demand and by the number of traders in the area. Additionally, traders could trade their goods for Indian goods with no cash involved, allowing for greater profit. In the 1860s a few Western post traders began using Indian Trader tokens as change for their Indian clients who did not use or possess a monetary medium. Indian Trader tokens were also issued as credits to pay for services rendered by the Indians, such as livestock recovery, general errands and chores or freighting of materials. The custom of using tokens spread throughout Western reservations and nearby lands; such tokens were used well into the 1930s. (Suggested reading: Peddlers and Post Traders, David M. Delo) This catalog has an excellent selection of Indian Trading Post tokens such as Bylas, Indian Wells, Tees-To and others.

Post Trader Tokens

Post Trader tokens are those issued by military forts or posts. A “post” was defined as “any sort of ground fortified or not where a body of men can be in a condition of resisting the enemy.” [Wilhelm, T.; Military and Naval Encyclopedia; 1879] With the American West full of forts during its expansion, tokens from these forts have become very collectible.

The field of collecting Post Traders is a fascinating hobby but the area of collecting is difficult because so many of the Western pieces are extremely rare. These tokens went through a system of name changes starting with pieces issued during the Civil War. These were known as “sutler” tokens. “Sutlers” were defined as “A camp follower who sells drinks and provisions to the troops,” according to Wilhelm. Congress ended the Sutler practice in 1866, and they were followed in name by Traders, which in turn were followed by Post Traders, followed by Canteen in 1888, changed to Post Exchange in 1895, and finally changed to NCO Clubs, etc in more modern times. [Curto, J.; Military Tokens of the United States, 1866-1969; 1970]

The tokens were all part of a military monetary system that was tightly accounted for. Cunningham, in Military Tokens of the United States (1995) noted that when a Post closed, the tokens were usually redeemed and destroyed or disposed of by dumping them “in latrines or in Post dumps.” That’s one reason why they are so rare today in Mint State.

A First!

This catalog is the first of its kind, and we hope you enjoy the offerings. Our entire office helped with the preparation of the catalog including the stories and layout. I’d like to recognize credit where it belongs:

Stories: Amy Baker, Vanessa Soulam, Lena DeMarco Taylor, Barbara Wilson, Paul Williams, Fred Holabird. Physical organization and inventory control: Vanessa Soulam, Barbara Wilson. Layout & design: Barbara Wilson, Lena DeMarco Taylor, Amy Baker.

Thanks, and we look forward to your calls.

Fred N. Holabird