1863 Token - Small Clip

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This was catalogued by Fuld as NY 630A-1a. The two dies, 29040 and 29030, left to right as you have presented them, are unique to this merchant, the Atlantic Beer Garden die being the obverse, as it includes the name of the merchant. The die sinker was Louis Roloff of the Charles D. Horter Co. of NYC. It is R-2, which means there are between 2001 and 5000 of them still around. Planchet clips are pretty common in this entire series, as they were made in shops that did this more or less on the side of their regular product lines.
Almost all Civil War tokens circulated as a cent during a time when Federal coinage in all metals was being hoarded. They cost the merchant anywhere from $7 to $9 a thousand, so he would make an immediate profit by giving them all out in change. The idea, of course, was that once the Federal coinage came back out of hoarding, the tokens would be redeemed by the merchants that issued them. Most were 19mm, the same as a cent, but this one is 22mm, as were many of the NYC tokens. The larger size, plus the fact that it required two custom dies, puts it in the $9 range, although with possibly 5k extant, his order must have been huge to begin with and may have been billed at a discount. The Atlantic Garden was a swashbuckling joint that would seat a thousand, so the cost of the tokens was probably immaterial to him. (Higby)