DescriptionThe French shell cards are especially associated with brothels, but they were also made for establishments that sold other things.France has been a hotbed of numismatic activity since Celtic times in the 3rd century BC. People making their own coins (tokens, imitations, counterfeits) was a normal activity wherever and whenever there was a coin shortage. Keeping in mind, of course, in this coinless age, that coins were THE way people did business until the 20th century. In France they were using tokens in the normal, local way we think of tokens being used, from the 15th century.
