Need Help With A Token

[Valens Legacy]

Saturday I was at an old farm house when I happened upon the token below. After some minor cleaning with my ultrasonic cleaner I was able to read what it said.

I have no idea what it is or why it is, if anyone has any ideas please let me know.

The item is about 3/4 the size of a dime, or closer to a trime, and is from a local town here in Illinois.

That is about all I can say about the Item, but would love to know more as to what it is.

The farm house was built around 1890 and was removed about 25 years ago.

Thank you for your help!

[PimentoUK]

A bit of search engine work tells me it's this one:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/exonumia71576.html

A nice bit of history, in decent condition.

[F350Platinum]

Hey VL,

Reverse image search (Google Lens) will work great with a coin or token if you take a picture of both sides with the text upright. One side or the other will get a hit. It's much harder to identify stuff that is crooked or upside down. It's hard to determine which way is up sometimes! 🤪 Chinese "Cash" coins are particularly tricky.

[GB_Amateur]

Strange denomination.  I wonder if a person had to collect four to be able to cash them in for anything of value.  Maybe a gimmick "made you look!".  Or the local merchants had some kind of promotion where prices included 1/4 cent and you got a discount if you turned in one of those tokens.  Historical society might be able to tell you the history.  If they don't have one locally then Springfield likely does.

Agree with PimentoUK -- the condition is particularly nice.  Makes you wonder if it didn't reach the ground until the house was razed.  I've found a few relics that I think went through that experience.

[Gold Seeker]

12 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Strange denomination.  I wonder if a person had to collect four to be able to cash them in for anything of value.  Maybe a gimmick "made you look!".  Or the local merchants had some kind of promotion where prices included 1/4 cent and you got a discount if you turned in one of those tokens.  Historical society might be able to tell you the history.  If they don't have one locally then Springfield likely does.

Agree with PimentoUK -- the condition is particularly nice.  Makes you wonder if it didn't reach the ground until the house was razed.  I've found a few relics that I think went through that experience.

The token is definitely a "tax token" not a redeemable cash token.

Here's a couple of links on the history/origins of tax tokens, the second link is especially for Illinois.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax_token

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Fjcns.org%2Farticals_files%2FILLINOIS%20LOCAL.doc

[kac]

Wonder if the IRS will honor it hahah. Very cool find.

[Valens Legacy]

1 hour ago, kac said:

Wonder if the IRS will honor it hahah. Very cool find.

Only if you had a few thousand of them and a gun to boot when trying to make them take them.

 

[Valens Legacy]

18 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

A nice bit of history, in decent condition.

Thanks for the information, and I really need to bookmark that page or app.

 

[Valens Legacy]

2 hours ago, Gold Seeker said:

The token is definitely a "tax token" not a redeemable cash token.

Here's a couple of links on the history/origins of tax tokens, the second link is especially for Illinois.

Thanks for the links and I am just just amazed at how fast people have been able to respond to this token with great links and advice.

Can you tell that I am still a newbie at this.

[Valens Legacy]

14 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Agree with PimentoUK -- the condition is particularly nice.  Makes you wonder if it didn't reach the ground until the house was razed.  I've found a few relics that I think went through that experience.

I have no idea on how long the token was in the ground, but does seem likely that it had to be after the house was torn down.

Thank you for looking and offering a little insight to what it is.