About 2 or 3 years ago I acquired some Ingle tokens, along with other US tokens including some better-than-common Civil War. I invited Steve Tanenbaum to make offers on pieces of interest, in exchange for help on things like transit tokens and coal tokens – which can consume way too much time, if you don’t know how to do the appropriate price-based numismatic triage.

Steve surprised me when he actually paid attention to the envelope in which I had gathered 20-30 Ingle tokens. He borrowed them and contacted someone who would attribute Ingles, in exchange for the opportunity to buy those he wanted. Naturally, I don’t know the name of Steve’s customer. Steve told me that the gent had sales LEDGERS from the Ingle company, with sufficient information about Ingle’s customers to attribute the pieces. It seems he could attribute most or all Ingles, so he must have had most of the ledgers.

Steve said that Wagaman’s catalog was prone to misattribution, as Lloyd would attach a token to the first matching name he found in a directory. If a token were issued by a Z. Q. Tarbachnikov, and you found a barkeep of that moniker in Alabama, one might reasonably assume that you had found your issuer, so that you could dispense with checking the other 49 states. But what about John Smith?

Steve paid me $20-100 for certain Ingles. Do you think I miss him??!!

It is my understanding that Jack Siles visited the Ingle-Schierloh company headquarters in Cincinnati and transcribed the Ingle ledgers which were shipping records of (most of) the 1909 and 1914 Ingle tokens. These are the records that are being used to attribute and to correct erroneous attributions made by Lloyd Wagaman in his Ingle Tokens book (issued by IKO-TAMS). There are several copies of this transcribed information extant - I think Randy Partin's maverick CD has the info, and I know Ingle specialist John Byars has a copy. Much of the information is now on www.tokencatalog.com in the entries for specific tokens.

John Byars is in possession of a copy of the Ingle Customer Ledger. Jack Siles also has a copy of the same directory. Jack provided the information which was included in the Partin/Chibarro Maverick CD. John provided the information which was used on the TokenCatalog.com website. The Ingle Customer Ledger was started about 1910, so misses the early Ingle tokens. It also continues past the time of Ingle System into the time of the Insurance Credit System tokens.

John Byars has transcribed the ledger into an Excel spreadsheet, and is in the process finding Dun/Bradstreet references for all merchants to verify their attribution. Most were sent to the town of use, but some appear in the Dun/Bradstreet directories in smaller nearby towns which did not have their own Post Office. Only on very large cities was a street number included in the ledger.

I have taken the transcribed information and updated all the Ingle listings on the TokenCatalog.com website. I believe all those listings to be accurate. I have not added information to the site, when there is no associated token on the site. If a token gets added, it gets the order number put with the listing and the reverse die is identified for the die study I am currently working on.

There exists a copy of another Ingle Ledger, which is being referred to as the Ingle Order Ledger. I have not seen this ledger, but it starts about 1918 and contains order specific information. The Ingle Customer Ledger only contains the customer name, order number and shipping address.

I had some fantastic email and phone conversations with John Byars about the ledgers and, thanks to him, I was able to get the information I needed or pointed in the correct direction. We were able to join forces so to speak in helping fill out some of the gaps in our knowledge on some of these tokens, especially with confirming some mystery pieces I had listed. I sincerely appreciate all his time and generosity in closing some gaps I have encountered in my Virginia (and West Virginia) research & collecting, as well as talking shop about the history behind them.

I have a few copies left of

INGLE SYSTEM SCRIP, Wagaman. 3365 listings, 70% attributed, photos. A checklist and aid to attributing the scrip/tokens issued by the Ingle company for the many merchants. Includes 3365 listings, with 70% attributed. Some photographs, introduction. Soft-Bound, 80p. $19.95 & $3/postage