Good evening CoinTalkers! Tonight I shot some images of my tokens from Joelton Air Force Station, Tennessee. I actually haven't really looked at them so I may not like them very much. Anyway, I bought these tokens back when I was still in Korea...nearly three years ago now! I was on the fence about purchasing the lot and the seller - unknown to me at the time - had several. I should have been more patient or asked in an effort to get the best lot but oh well. Something I found very interesting was that when Paul Cunningham published his monumental work, "Military Tokens of the United States: Volume 1 (Domestic Issues)" he only listed the 10¢ token and gave it a value of $100, and this was in 1994. I picked up this set for less than that price but we all know price lists are not very useful. Since these tokens were unlisted I gave them their own Cunningham number, keeping with his system. Tokens below with the Cunningham number: TN30a (Blurry...will have to reshoot! ) TN30b TN30c TN30d TN30e (The green has me worried. Must buy Verdicare) Joelton Air Force Station (AFS) was a radar site that provided coverage for the Nashville, Tennessee area. It's purpose in life was to monitor the airspace and should unfriendly aircraft approach it was to guide interceptor aircraft to the location of the enemy. It became operational 1 October 1956 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base with the creation of the 799th Aircraft Control and Warning Station. Joelton was closed 1 June 1961 due to budgetary constraints. Below is the unit emblem: Some photos from www.radomes.org of the radars: And a current image of the area, again from www.radomes.org The FAA still operates the radar. Many of the old Air Force building still stand, though they've been re-purposed. The "barracks" (we don't use that word) have been torn down and were where the playground is. No wonder these tokens were largely unknown to Cunningham with the station operating less than five years!
Did their radar repeaters beep? Sorry old Navy joke. Thank you for the post and images Jack. Those are some nice looking tokens! I never saw military tokens in bi-metal before.
Great tokens Jwt... I'd suggest sending your pics to Paul. His email is on his site: cunninghamexonumia dot com. He has told me he is always collecting information for updating his books.
I think your right about that. I see plating in spots outside the perimeter going into parts of the brass area. I also see raised metal at some of the junction points between the plated area and brass area indicative of a slip die. Sometimes token dies had centers that "sliped" out and a new center with a different denomination sliped in. This caused metal to fill the gap that had to be there in order to remove and replace them. @Jwt708 are they all the same diameter?
They are bimetallic. I failed to capture the brass but it looks very gold in hand, except for the $1 token, that one is more worn. They are not all the same size...I'll measure them and update later. My notes need the measurement also. Think the 5¢ is 18mm, 10¢ is 21mm, 25¢ is 25mm, 50¢ 32mm, and $1 35mm.
I have several updates actually and a few unlisted... I know you've been waiting all day for this so at long last here they are: 5¢ 22mm 10¢ 25mm 25¢ 29mm 50¢ 32mm $1 35mm
Can picture how that would have play out in 1956? President Frugality is in the White House. Rumors are flying that Ike is eyeballing the military for budget cuts. The C/O of Joelton doesn't want bean counters looking too hard at his base budget. The token contractor suggests a slip die and solid planchets to save a few beans. But then, oh no they're all the same size. People are going to get confused. But no, wait, we can high light the denomination area with some nickel plating thereby negating the savings. It would have been a fabulous military story. Of course nothing will ever beat the Navy's $600 manually operated, vertically deployed, inertial impact devices. Yeah, hammers.
