This is not a regular coin... What do you think it is?
What was it used for? When do you think it was used?
Answers:
This is not a regular coin... What do you think it is?
This is an aluminum tax token! It was minted in 1935 here in Washington state, and worth a fraction of a cent: 1/10, to be exact! Other states had other denominations, often 1/4 or 3/4 of a cent. Eventually they fell out of favor because people did not like having to carry a second set of coins.
What was it used for? When do you think it was used?
Tax tokens like this one were used during the Great Depression, when overcharging people by less than a cent was a reasonable and widespread concern. Because of the potentially uneven outcomes of percentage math on tax amounts, purchase totals sometimes had change of a fraction of a cent, and in those cases people could use a tax token such as this one to avoid paying more than they were billed. Tax tokens were taken out of circulation by the end of the 1930s (except for Missouri, which would take another decade).
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