Vintage Kansas Tax Tokens

Description

Kansas tax token heavy tarnish, but no damage.  Contract
for manufacture of the tokens went to the Osborne Register Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. This company was founded in 1920 and was in the business of manufacturing various types of tokens, such as those used for transportation and sales tax.
Tokens were distributed out of the State Tax Commission in Topeka, Kansas. They were issued in lots of 500. The initial demand for the tokens was strong but faded with time. The first Kansas token was a two mill—a mill is 1/10th of a cent—token, which represented the sales tax on a ten-cent purchase. For purchases less than ten cents the two mill token represented over-taxation. The tokens were called “Huxies” by Kansas consumers—a dubious tribute to Governor Huxman. As a result of political pressure, a one mill token was issued later in the year 1937.
By 1938 it was reported that 30.9 million two mill tokens and 21.2 million one mill tokens had been produced. Due to the widespread unpopularity of the tokens, political pressure began to build to discontinue the issuance of the tokens. In 1938, a special session of the Kansas legislature was called by Governor Huxman. During this session a bill was introduced to abolish the sales tax tokens. The bill didn’t have enough support and the law remained unchanged. All remaining tokens were sold as scrap in 1941 for the war effort