Stamp Money of 20th Century America

This is the first of a four-part series with in-depth covering of a little-known aspect of American numismatics.

PART 1

As its name implies, an encased postage stamp consists of a casing of some kind with an ordinary postage stamp inside of it. Such an instrument was created out of necessity, and the first of these appeared in 1862, shortly after the beginning of the U.S. Civil War.

Why were such things considered necessary? The need came about because of the widespread hoarding of regularly circulating U.S. coinage during the war. The Treasury Department was at its wits’ end and felt it had to come up with some sort of acceptable substitute for the vanished coinage, so the law of July 17, 1862, allowed regular postage stamps to circulate as coins. Can you imagine the sordid, sticky