When my mom passed away this January she left me her New Orleans Mardi Gras dabloon collection. Im about 1/2 of the way through sorting them out and she has mainly Rex, Bacchus, and Endimyon crew dabloons. Could anyone point me in a direction where I could see if any of these are collectible and worth any money? She has many dates ranging from 1962 to 1998. The dabloons are made out of aluminum and probably don't carry much metal value. Thanks, Scott W.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I am curious as to what you found out about the doubloons. The 60's and '70s would be of most interest to me. What is the oldest Rex?
I don't know how I missed this. A collection of these would have some limited value and could be valuable depending on whether or not there are scarcities. But an accumulation is very unlikely to have anything of much interest and will probably sell at about 4c each. A collection might bring 15c each and a coillection focused on single krewes with scarcities and off-metal could go for several dollars each if a buyer can be found. There are only several dozen collectors of these and most seenm to stick with common items. There are specific throws that have a much wider interest than just Mardi Gras collectors and there's competition for them. There's a soap token for instance that gets snapped up pretty quick for $15 or more when it appears because there are three or four hundred soap token collectors. I'm surprised the beer tokens don't do a lot better because it's an extensive collection and there are lots of beer token collectors. For some reason they seem to avoid the Mardi Gras tokens. I think in time some of these will do much better since supply is not huge and there's lots of potential demand. Some of these are extremely attractive with beautiful designs and colors. There will always be a lot of common and unloved throws however so even accymulations will often be of little interest. I can't see these beconming widely popular. They're easy to store and collect. I keep mine by krewes or issuing authorities in 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" pages. They slip in quite easily so only cost about a penny each to display. Removing them to add more specimens is a little more difficult and will wear out all your fingers unless you make a tool to push them out. You can buy hoards for only a few cents each and trade to make a fairly good sized collection. Most of the ones that list over 50c have to be purchased. I've run into the very rare silver versions for melt several times so keep your eyes open. Most of these have mintages of a dozen or fewer and attrition must be high if they're selling for melt. It's a cheap hobby if you have the time. I really enjoy the concept of scarcity or rarity for pennies. Throw in beauty and desirability and it's a no-brainer.
Ive been away from the forum for awhile and just saw there were some posts here. I have cataloged most of the dabloons. Ill try to get back to the thread by the end of the weekend with the answers to ya'lls questions. Thanks for replying.
