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I just recently learned about these and am fascinated with them.

Apparently these Spielmarke tokens, "game token" in English, were used in Germany from the 1800s into the 20th century, specifically from circa 1870 to 1950. I think there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different designs. I'm pretty sure that I have learned under 3% of everything there is to know about tokens.

This one was $3.50 on Ebay, something that I might put in my personal collection.

 

One of the MANY rabbit holes I have explored . . . . .

There are several invaluable vintage catalog books by L. Benjamin Fauver that really help with the identification and attribution of some of the 1890's Game Counter pieces.

Exonumia Symbolism & Classification is his largest book which covers the Kettle struck pieces, Hard Times and Civil War tokens.

He also published American Counters I, II, III, IV, and V which cover the Quarter-Eagle to Double-Eagle sized gaming counters struck for the American consumer market. A similar CT thread was showing off a few of these style counters.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/isn’t-she-a-beauty.420926/#post-26653091

Your Spiel Marke token would be cataloged in Fauver's Nuremberg and Nuremberg Style Jetons. I don't have a copy of this book but would love to get my hands on one.

That being said, many of these little spiel marke gaming tokens have been photographed and cataloged on TokenCatalog.com

Here is a link that will take you to quite a few.

https://tokencatalog.com/display_re...ingAnyWord=&HomePageSearch=&view=All+Listings

Here are a but a small selection of those I have been fortunate to have picked up.

Z

 

And photos one of my favorite pieces. Attribution is from the first of Fauver's books mentioned above.

Z


(undated) Liberty - Comp. S. Marke / City Hall - New York Spiel-Marke - Fauver (Liberty-1010, City Hall-1105 b (P)) (R7) - 27mm

 

These were struck by Ludwig Christoph Lauer.










Struck by Conrad Balmberger around 1900





Unknown maker, struck around 1856