ALBERT WICK'S STATE SALES TAX TOKENS BOOKS

I wasn't aware of Al. Wick's books on Colonial coins, but I have State Sales Tax Tokens and State Sales Tax Tokens PART TWO by him. They look just like the Colonial coins book--mimeographed (in green ink) on mimeograph paper, with thick construction paper covers, two staples, and punched for a three-hole binder. Pages are unnumbered. For the first volume, the inside title is A Collection of Album Pages for Sales Tax Tokens. With Data and Comments on Sales Tax Tokens. Copyright 1949 Albert H. Wick. Published by Al. Wick, 5437 Nagel Ave., St. Louis, 9, Mo. No edition size is stated, but the mimeograph process would limit it to a few hundred, or perhaps the low thousands, before the stencil wore out.

This is a very nice and useful book. Wick primarily covered the state sales tax issues only, with no data on the Illinois (and other) provisional issues. On the first page after the Preface is a fine map of the United States dated July 1, 1945 showing which states had sales and use taxes. At that time 25 states had no sales tax! Following is a page of data on sales and use tax collections as related to population and income in 1940, then pages for each region or individual state that did not use tax tokens. But the last page puts this effort firmly in the hobby category:

Part Two, as mentioned, is an album with one or two pages per state, printed on thick construction paper, with identical inside title. Tokens were to be mounted by placing them in a cellophane envelope and stapling them to the page; a sample Missouri token is so mounted on the Instructions page. Wick warned, "Never use scotch tape. The adhesive gets soft and will run, and will give you plenty of trouble later." When the stapler would not reach, Wick advised opening it up and tacking, then bending the staple over by hand. Only major types were included. The regular Illinois tokens were covered on one page, with a second mostly blank page for the provisional tokens.

This is a pioneering effort in the field of sales tax token literature, published when Missouri and a few other states were still using them. Before Wick, only dealers' price lists and Gaston Di Bella's listing in the March 15, 1944 issue of Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine were available.

I don't know how many of these were actually used as intended, as a token album. My copy, which is new (has a water stain on one back cover), came from a small hoard discovered many years ago.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: ALBERT WICK'S AMERICAN COLONIAL COINS & TOKENS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n08a11.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web