What The Experts Say...

HT 170, Low 327.
Rutter was a man who seems to have had his finger in many pies. His card mentions such varied disciplines as junk iron and "songs and ballads." A pair of crossed musical instrument, a flue and a horn, are shown on the obverse. According to Storer, "Only 20 were struck and their use was prohibited after they had been in use for only an hour." He considered it, "one of the rarest Massachusetts store cards." This token is one of the finest known. It is probably equal to the Zeddies/Brand specimen which had a bit more detail but showed discoloration around some letters and the remains of old inactive verdigris. It is finer than the Steinberg example (1989 #454 & 2002 #5482) which was VF/XF and had a thin diagonal scratch on the obverse.

(H. Joseph Levine, PCAC, The Litman, Sullivan & Dreyfuss Collections, December 4, 2004)