The Mill.... Coin That Is!

My Grandpa Bill was a collector of coins. I was reminded the other day of a particular one he had given me years ago….a Mill Coin. Do you know what  a “Mill Coin” is? Have you ever seen one?

Cardboard Oklahoma Mill Coin
 

The Mill Coin was issued in various states across the country, beginning in Oklahoma January 1, 1936 ending production September 30, 1961. They were also made out of anything from cardboard, tin, aluminum, plastic, or paper, and could come in an array of colors.

 

So What’s the Point?

 The Mill Coin was used as a means to help pay taxes for the merchants to the state.

 

Here is an example given by “Sales Tax Token Collector”, you can read the Full Article at: http://www.taxtoken.org/faq.htm

 

 

"Merchants had to pay sales tax to the state on the total amount of sales made by the merchant during each day's sales. You can imagine that if the sales tax rate is 3% and a child buys a 10c piece of candy there is no way to collect the three-tenths of one cent. If you rounded down that meant that the merchant could not collect anything for the tax. If you rounded up the state was gaining 7 tenths of a cent on every 10 cent sale. You can see that if the merchant sold 100 pieces of candy he was loosing 30 cents a day in tax revenues to the state, so the token was born. This allowed the merchant to take 11 cents for the first piece of candy and give  change back in mills. The next time you wanted to buy a 10c candy you could present the merchant with the 10c    and a token and complete the transaction. This allowed the merchant to collect the sales tax on each transaction.

 

A mill is 1/1000th of a dollar or a tenth of a cent. As you can imagine, people did not like having to carry a second set of coins, and to further complicate matters, different states issued different tax tokens. 1  and 5 mills are the most common denominations, but other denominations include: 1/5 cent, 1 1/2 mills, and "Tax on 10c or less."