*Highlight* 1862 J. Gault’s Encased Postage EP-34B

*Highlight* 1862 J. Gault’s Encased Postage EP-34B
***Auction Highlight*** 1862 J. Gault’s Encased Postage EP-34B Large Ayers, silvering remains Graded au50 By SEGS. Up for Auction is One of The Civil War’s Foremost Rarities, The “Encased Postage” coin. While not Technically a Coin, a Note or a Stamp, John Gault’s Encased Postage was king of currency For a Brief Year in 1862. When The Civil war Broke out in 1861, all of the “Hard Currency” quickly Dissapeared. But people still needed to purchase a 3¢ loaf of bread, a 1¢ newspaper, a 5¢ quart of milk and countless other goods that required coins. And vendors had to make change when an item’s price was less than a nickel, a dime or a quarter. In some cities, businesses gave customers I.O.Us, private companies created “Civil War tokens” and paper money was cut into several pieces to represent a fraction of a dollar. Clever remedies for sure, but none that were widely used or accepted. All of this radically changed on July 17, 1862, when Congress decided to address the coinage shortage and passed a law that allowed postage stamps to satisfy debts of less than $5. People began to carry stamps in their purses and pockets and used them repeatedly for daily purchases. Vendors gladly accepted the stamps as payment. But all of this hand-to-hand usage quickly resulted in damaged stamps with denominations sometimes unrecognizable. The local post offices would not exchange damaged stamps for new ones, so a remedy was needed. John Gault, a New York entrepreneur, decided he had the best solution. On August 12, 1862, Gault obtained a patent for a “postage stamp case”, or as he named the item in a newspaper advertisement, the “New Metallic Currency. Gault didn’t sell the encased stamps to the public. Instead, he sold them to stores and businesses that needed “coinage” to make change for customers’ purchases. Gault’s profit came from the 20% markup over the face value of the stamp. To increase his potential profit, Gault’s second idea was to inscribe advertising on the back of the encased stamp. He would charge companies who purchased the metallic currency an additional 2¢ for each item. Encased stamps were widely accepted in the general commerce realm until later in 1862 when the government issued “fractional currency”. This legitimate, government-sanctioned currency quickly eliminated the coin shortage. Having no other value than the stamp, people tore apart the encasements of their metallic currency to remove the stamp to use as postage. Thus the scarcity of the 1862 encased stamps today. The Example being offered today is EP34B, Large Ayer’s, Ayer’s Sarsaparilla, 3c Rose Colored Washington Stamp, with the Advertising Slogan “To Purify the Blood” The case has a nice Patina and some original silvering remaining, which is rare, The Mica & Stamp are 100% intact. The Stamp is Clear and the Case pleasing.