Money of California

[Figleaf]

Recently, a member told me of her interest in California money. She has not become active, but she fired my imagination. The more you think about it, the more the question becomes a matter of judgement. Here is the result of my thumb sucking. Quite a few dates are approximations and I may have missed money forms. One is tobacco, often used us money, but I am not sure it was ever grown in enough quantity in CA.

• Acorns, a staple of the Indian diet (pure speculation.)
• 1697 - 1821 Spanish colonial coins, especially those of Mexico.
• 1776 - 1848 Hides, leather and tallow.
• 1816 - 1848 British and Russian coins (and banknotes?)
• 1816 to date US coins and banknotes, from 1854 to 1981 also struck in San Francisco.
• 1821 - 1857 Mexican coins (and banknotes?)
• 1833 - 1843 Hard times tokens. (doubtful!)
• 1848 - 1853 California gold private tokens.
• around 1850 Gold dust
• 1867 - 1880 Imperial California banknotes.
• 1900 - 1925 California trade tokens.

I am ready to correct and adjust the above list.

Peter

[Prosit]

Acorns were used by most if not all native Americans and most all primitive peoples living where oaks grew.. Scavenging for Starch in nature is sometime a very tough endeavor but acorns are a ready source.

All acorns have tannin that is bitter and has undesirable affects. The acorns (minus the shell) must have the tannin leached but it is an easy process. Then roasted they tend to taste a little like walnuts but if made into flower then they are useful in many ways.

I think it safe to assume acorns were important in California native Americans diets.

It will make a pretty good flat bread (among other things) suitable even for today's gourmet.

Dale

• Acorns, a staple of the Indian diet (pure speculation.)

Peter

[/list]

[FosseWay]

Acorns were used to make something called "coffee" during WW2 in various places rich in oak trees and lacking in any imports of real coffee. I tasted the resulting brew once, at a WW2 museum on Guernsey. It was not an unpleasant taste but it had little in common with coffee!

[EWC]

There was also big spate of low value California Saloon tokens at the beginning of the 20th century.  Steve Album published a catalogue of them in two volumes.

A couple of interesting points

1)  Steve interviewed people who had used them, but never found a single text reference to their existance!  (outside of text on the items themselves of course)

2)  The San Franciso mint did not produce copper coin at that time - thus the tokens would very probably be a reaction to a lack of small change. 

3)  Prof Buttrey one time sarcastically rejected (2).  I never got to the bottom of why.

[bgriff99]

I am ready to correct and adjust the above list.

Peter

Mexican silver and gold was legal tender in the US until 1857.   The silver continued to circulate out west to the end of the century at a slight discount.   For a long period worn one real coins passed as a dime.   Philadelphia-made nickels did not circulate in the west for a while.   Silver 5 cent pieces from San Francisco were  not minted in sufficient quantity.   What you would often get was a medio real in change.   Gold dust was used as money, by weight, early in the gold rush, until coins started to be made locally.

But how about some pics?    (oops, sorry, they aren't to scale.)

[Figleaf]

Yes! Photos are very welcome. List is adjusted. I am having doubts about the hard times tokens. Were any issued in California?

Peter

[bgriff99]

I am having doubts about the hard times tokens. Were any issued in California?

Peter

Technically, no.   There is at least one copper large cent token from CA dated 1849, but that is outside the time period of "Hard Times."

[Figleaf]

So adjusted. Here's another picture "pour encourager les autres". Emperor Norton's banknotes. They stand for a more innocent form of distrust of the government, but also for a pleasant form of tolerance.

Peter

[bgriff99]

And some silver.   For the record this silver dollar is from circulation.   Saw it in a grocery store cash register with my parents, maybe 1961.   There was no place for it in the register, so it was sitting on the 20's.   Looking at it now, it was probably missing from someone's collection.   But crappy ones did circulate until 1964.

[Figleaf]

Tall, but likely story. I picked up a very nice Morgan from a dealer on my very first visit to the US in 1971 for $1.25.

Meanwhile, I took off the sales tax tokens. California produced only a pattern token.

Peter

[bgriff99]

Peter, I don't have anything in the way of les autres that you mean, but how about this?  Legal tender for a buck the day it was struck from Maine to California to Campeche.

[Figleaf]

 

[bgriff99]

Meanwhile, I took off the sales tax tokens. California produced only a pattern token.

Peter

Interesting link.   I had to read the description a couple times to figure out the tokens were purchased so as to be able to pay the fractional cents of tax.   That was long before my time.   The little certificates, called tax stamps, issued in Ohio, were only receipts, but upon reading the link, for a more devious reason than I knew.    The state would remit a fraction of their face value, for quantities turned back in to them, and sometimes schools would have collection drives.   

In 1958, I would have been 5, we went to Niagara Falls.   It happened that on the day we went it was the first day of a new 3% sales tax in New York State.    People in a diner were grousing about it.    I asked if they had the stamps.   They didn't know what I was talking about.    Ohio dropped them in 1962. 

[Figleaf]

Their introduction in 1929 was likely influenced by the depression, as it was highly deflationary. The sales tax tokens shown in Wikipedia are state issued. There are also private sales tax issues and some of those are paper. Some look close to advertising tokens. Related, but different are rationing tokens and food stamp tokens. Those were used in California, I suppose...

Peter

[Thulium]

1. Acorns, a staple of the Indian diet (pure speculation.)

Among the California Indian tribes, another material that was valued highly was stone suitable for tools, particularly obsidian that could produce sharp points for hunting deer and other animals. The arrow point below was found by me, and what is interesting about it--obsidian does not occur in the region it was found, only 100miles/160km North around an old volcano. Such obsidian was less plentiful than acorns, but extremely important for hunting and tools--and therefore traded over long distances.