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12½ Cents Corporation of Winchester
| Issuer | Corporation of Winchester |
|---|---|
| Year | 1861 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | A standing Lady Virtue vignette occupies the left border, with a beehive vignette at center. Letterpress text fills the note body, with the denomination TWELVE AND A HALF CENTS set in large bold type. Issued under the Act of the Corporation of Virginia, dated Winchester, October 24th, 1861. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Blank. |
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| Comments |
Winchester changed hands more than seventy times during the Civil War — Union and Confederate forces traded the city back and forth so repeatedly that local commerce was in near-constant disruption. Small-denomination fractional currency like this 12½ cent scrip filled the vacuum left by hoarded and vanished federal coinage, which disappeared from circulation almost immediately after secession-era panic set in across Virginia in 1861.
The Corporation of Winchester issued these notes on municipal authority at the very start of that process, before Confederate scrip had established any foothold. The 12½ cent denomination itself — a direct descendant of the Spanish real — was already an anachronism by 1861, clinging on in American daily commerce through sheer habit.