QUERY: S.B. CHILDS TOKEN DESIGN SOURCE SOUGHT

Dave Bowers, who with other members of the Civil War Token Society is working on The Specialized Collection of Civil War Cards, is exploring in depth the several dozen engravers and minters of Civil War tokens and the biographies of nearly 1,000 different merchants who issued these. This is intended as a supplement to U.S. Civil War Store Cards, recently published and available on the CWTS website.

Among the most curious of store cards is the illustrated die 1356, created a year before the 1861-1865 war, but numismatically “adopted” into the series. This was issued by S.B. Childs, a Chicago maker of store cards—one of the major issuers of Civil War tokens. However, this particular token is very curious and is different from any other of the hundreds of dies in the Civil War token series. It is not a rare image and was used on the store cards of a number of Illinois merchants and one in Wisconsin.

The iconography is unique for a CWT. It shows a goddess or allegorical lady at seaside (perhaps lakeside as Chicago is on Lake Michigan) holding the scales of justice in her left hand and cradling a sword with her right arm. She is seated on a bale, perhaps emblematic of commerce, while in the background is a fully-rigged sailing ship, perhaps also evocative of commerce. At once side is an overflowing cornucopia, suggesting plenty. On the ground to the right is a Roman fasces on its side.

Was this motif specifically inspired by a coin, medal, bank note vignette, painting or other object of art? A penny token of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), 1855, comes close. There are countess depictions of Justice seated and standing, holding scales, on obsolete bank notes but none even closely match the Childs token. Can anyone suggest a more specific origin or inspiration? If anyone has any ideas, Dave would be glad to learn of them. Contact him by e-mail at qdbarchive@metrocast.net.

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