Sue P. writes: I have what I think is a token from the state of Missouri. It has the imprint of the state of Missouri in the middle, with a number 1 inside the state. The words: “Missouri Sales Tax Receipt” surrounds the coin. Do you know when this token was issued, and what people did with them? I can’t imagine the entire state of Missouri turning these in to Uncle Sam at tax time, as proof of tax! Thanks so much for your time.
Because cents were valuable in the Depression years of the 1930’s, some States issued sales tax tokens either in fractions of a cent or mills (1 mil=1000th of a cent). Since Sales tax would be exact and there were no fractional cents to give change, the final price of an item was rounded up and the difference paid back to the customer in sales tax tokens. These tokens could be used to pay all or part of any sales tax at the time of another purchase.
