Let's see your exonumia!

I only have a number of other 1st day covers that were sent thru the mail. Street address I came by these 3rd/4th hand so to speak.
Will have to look at a couple of others that have turned up in bulk buys but mostly just the cellophane wrapped medals and plastic disks turn up or people take them out completely and pitch the plastic disk

 

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Gas stations branded car wash token

 

I am a big fan of exonumia, and try to collect Maine stuff. I met a guy who has all kinds of it and even wrote a guidebook to it! Here's a neat one that was created by a medallion maker in the 70's:

 

Here's another one:

 

Absolutely love all the items being displayed. Although a coin collector through and through, I sometimes feels I’m beginning to enjoy the collecting of Exonumia items more and more, taking my interest to new and different heights. Coins are cool and great, but exonumia items or things tell a story way beyond what coins can really do or say!
If we have a Morgan Dlr, ok. Or a Walking Half, great, the beautiful Merc Dime, the forever cool Wheat Cent or the Gold Coin all have their place and story. But my oh my, it’s the Token, the Medal, the unknown piece that tells the tales and instills the story far over our coinage. IMHO
Maybe the (Silver) lining is just that it’s great we are all interested in both hobbies and we share our passion for both

 

The coin most U S collectors covet is the 1909-S-VDB cent mintage 250,000+. The most common token currently available is the CHUCK E CHEESE yearly tokens mintage 50,000. There are few state token collectors who do not own at least one unique previously unreported merchant token. Unless a coin collector is seeking every die from an obsolete type coin there is nothing more challenging than trying to obtain a specimen of every known token from their home state. The challenge and the satisfaction gives you a lifetime project with finds nearly every week. That is the reason why bored coin collectors reach a plateau then move out into token collecting.

 

You said it all for me, Otis. I don't collect coins anymore, though up until about 10 or 15 years ago that was all I had an interest in. Since I'm a big history buff, tokens provide a huge area to research. I now collect mostly counterstamps, but some other exonumia as well. Welcome to Coin Talk, and I hope we hear from you often.

Bruce

 

Valar Morghulis

 

From the Colorado Central Station casino

 

Not my token but another fake. I am not sure where they are made, but I used to see one seller from Vietnam with them. Looks like other sellers are offering these tokens as well. I snatched this image from eBay because it clearly captures the surfaces of the token - where the ones from the seller in Vietnam are poor quality.



Mine:


Some others:

 

It's good that you're highlighting these fakes, Jack. What's the giveaway to make it a fake? I have a good feel for fake counterstamps, especially the Irish political stamps I collect, but for standard tokens not so much. Thanks for posting it, my friend.

Bruce

 

The tokens the fakes are trying to copy would have been struck. The counterfeits show signs of casting. I'm also not sure what metal they're made out of but in hand they feel lighter that the brass of the originals. The fields all have the same weird cross hatch effect going on and the fake from my collection has a visible seam - can be seen in the 4:00 - 8:00 position on the obverse and the 11:00 - 12:00 on the reverse. What you cannot see in the picture is the filed edge on mine from where the casting sprue was removed.

In my opinion the first fake was artificially damaged to make it look real. My token did not have much of an applied patina, but just about every other I've seen looks like the below. The seller from Vietnam claimed they were found burried in a river I believe.

The standard references do not identify a token from Bien Hoa in this denomination or material. That alone isn't enough to condemn it a fake because there are plenty of unlisted tokens and denominations the Cunningham and Bows missed. I don't have Curto but the other references are more complete.

I hope that helps!

 

I haven't taken any new photos but I did crop/combine/poorly edit some of a seller's pictures to make the below images:


Custer Air Force Station, Michigan; aluminum, 35mm, red


Custer Air Force Station, Michigan; aluminum, 38mm, blue



Like most of the Air Force Stations from the Cold War, Custer AFS has been out of use since the early '60s. Almost nothing of the radar site is still standing except a few buildings that have been re-purposed by civilians.

 

Thanks, Jack, that does help. I see the diagnostics you're talking about, including the weird crosshatching...haven't seen that look before on anything. The intentional damage would cover up a lot of sins too.

Bruce