I have most of these but am missing a few. The Missouri would be interesting to research on the part where money goes to help the "insane". There are horror stories based in fact on many of the old sanitarium's that would make your hair stand up. Even nearby me, there was one in North Adams, Ma. that has some chilling stories behind its history.
There were many manufacturers but I believe Osbourne Register made quite a few of them. They were distributed to retailers at face value in most if not all states. Ohio also used a system involving stamps even when I visited there in the '50's. The Secret Service intervened because these were being used as coins. Instead of tendering a shiny new buffalo nickel for a candy bar (they were a lot bigger then), people were sometimes paying with "10" 5 mil coins. They forced the states to quit using them. Most of them held by the manufacturers, states, and retailers were destroyed but huge numbers were in circulation and these are mostly what have survived. There are some very scarce and highly desirable specimens which have survived and I've heard even of nice BU rolls of some. Collections can still be assembled very cheaply through trading. Even scarcities rarely trade for more than a dollar or two and wholesale is only about a nickel apiece for bulk lots.
There was one here in Arvada CO. Very chilling and creepy place. Not to mention the sick and depraved so called doctors that tortured these patients. I went there once in the 90's. I won't ever step onto the land again. It is now a college.
My father was not a coin collector but he saved these sales tax tokens in the 1930's and put them in small containers. Containers and US State sales tax tokens
I used to dig these out of the ground all the time. Most were in really bad shape. There was a city block near me at the time that had been torn down. The last building was an old bar. I was there hunting as they tore it down and cleared the mess. I could not believe the quantity of tax tokens I found around the foundation. Along with that were more wine bottle caps than I could dig.
