I have a token, size of a nickle, but different composition. Big letters, 173 on both sides, and 8 stars on each side. Both sides are the same. Got it in a collection. I have posted a picture a few posts below.
Maybe a canteen token for a military unit designated "173rd" something or other. Might be foreign. I want to say I've seen something similar that was French and from WWI.
I'd like a pic. I like tokens more than the average numismatist, but admittedly don't know a great deal about them.
We might be able to help you with a pic mecha1166. I'm with you ratio, I like tokens a lot too because of all the interesting series and varieties in each series. Civil War tokens and counterstamps are particular favorites of mine. Bruce
It's probably a Minnesota amusement token. Most of these were used back in the '20's and '30's in nickolodeans and slot machines for gum and cigarettes and the like. If you're still interested I'll look it up for you.
These are so hard to look up that I never do it on a whim. Unsurprisingly it is Minnesota and specifically Saint Paul 760-ZQJ. The reverse is identical. There's no information about when it was used but the best guess is the '20's. It's a shame these don't attact a great deal more attention and massive sets can still be assembled for remarkably little cost. There are lots of people to trade with so a lot of the cost is just postage. Alpert and Smith (Video Arcade, Pinball, Slot Machine, and Other Amusement Tokens of North America- 1984) suggest this token is relatively common. Common only means there are more of the tokens than collectors and generally fewer than a thousand of any exist and typically a lot fewer.
Thank you very much for the info! I spent hours looking it up on the 'net, not a lot of info out there.
Thanks for the info cladking, I was curious about this one too. I'm a 19th Century counterstamp collector, so common to me means if there are more than 20-25 known. A large percentage of old counterstamps are unique, or have only 2-3 examples known. Bruce
I collect several types of tokens that can be exceedingly rare as well. One area is state good for tokens. These like most tokens were ordered in lots of 1000 but unlike amusement tokens the business that ordered them had a tendency to destroy every example in thir possession since they feared they'd end up in the hands of someone trying to redeem them. The few tokens in the hands of customers had extremely poor survival rates and 90% of the time no tokens at all survived. Their existence is known through both token makers records and through books containing salesman samples which were one sided tokens made expressly for the purpose. When 1000 proved to be insufficient the business would order another 1000 and these would be slightly different than the first batch since dies were always destroyed. It simply isn't too unusual to find unknown tokens. Indeed I once obtained a small bag of tokens that had been used by a small businessman in Charlotte Michigan. The exception thing is that there were some 40 different included for a city with only 14 different known and all of the 14 different weren't represented! These same things are seen in transportation tokens though the survivorship of these is far higher. I suppose some people save them as mementos and the old tokens often are saved from destruction. Relatively few transportation tokens are rare other than the older ones. I've run into very few of the counterstamps so I suppose the attrition on these as very high as well. Of course in most cases "mintages" were low as well.
There certainly is a lot to choose from when collecting tokens, and just about all types are of interest to me. I pretty much limit myself to counterstamps though, because of their great historical significance and the vast oportunities for research they afford me. I think token collecting in general is a very rewarding hobby. Thanks for all the good info cladking. Bruce
