Colorado sales-tax tokens are from the '30s and '40s

QUESTION: I recently found an aluminum coin that says “Colorado Sales Tax-Retail Token.” It has the number “2.” When were these tokens used and for what purpose? What does the number 2 signify?
- Martin J. Kuettel

ANSWER: Colorado used sales-tax tokens from Sept. 1, 1935,to Feb. 28, 1945, according to American Numismatic Association curator Doug Mudd. When they were no longer used, the roughly 77 million tokens still in circulation could be redeemed until June 1945.

Mudd said the 2-mill tokens were used when Colorado established a sales tax of 2 percent and had to figure out how that would be paid in amounts less than 1 cent. Sales of 5 cents or less had no tax, 6 to 14 cents had one token, 15 to 24 cents two tokens, etc. Sales tax on 45 to 50 cents was a penny. Mudd said the tokens were issued in huge numbers, first in aluminum and then plastic.

Hallenbeck Coin Galleries said it gets large numbers of sales-tax tokens, most from Missouri or Colorado. The day we called the shop, it had sold a large bag of red-plastic Colorado tokens on eBay for $8.