Scarce mid-19th-century daguerreian advertising token issued for the Fitzgibbon Daguerreotype Gallery of St. Louis, Missouri. One side reads “Fitzgibbon Daguerreotype Gallery” encircling a spread-wing eagle with shield, an iconography closely tied to early American daguerreotype supply firms and gallery branding. The reverse advertises the gallery’s precise location, “No. 1, 4th Street, St. Louis, Mo.”, with the additional text “Over D. Nicholson’s Grocery Store – 1850”, firmly dating the piece to the earliest decade of commercial photography in the Midwest.

Struck in brass with raised lettering and detailed relief, the token shows honest circulation wear and mellow patina consistent with period use. Daguerreian tokens of this type functioned as both advertising and trade ephemera, often distributed to clients or retained by photographers, and survive in far smaller numbers than contemporary Civil War tokens or store cards.

An important artifact of early photographic commerce west of the Mississippi, directly linking the daguerreotype trade to a named St. Louis gallery and a documented street address. A highly desirable piece for collectors of daguerreotypes, photographic history, early St. Louis ephemera, and 19th-century American tokens.