An opa point was used in WWII and I just got a red point in the mail from eBay, a red/blue point is roughly worth 2 dollars. President Roosevelt issued the OPA that issued the tokens for rationing food during the war.
I don't believe they're worth very much. Back in the 70's and 80's, I would always see loads of these in junk boxes
Most are worth very little but there is one red token that is very rare and usually sells for about $100 I can't remember the letter combo right now. I will try to post it later
The blue tokens are a little better than the red tokens, especially to ones with check letters that start with W, but they still aren't worth much, maybe a dollar or so. There are two red tokens that are worth a little, the MM (maybe $5 if it is a nice one) and the MV which is $75 to $100. When I first learned about OPA tokens there were only about 24 MV tokens known. More have shown up since then but they are still rare.
I have a coin purse from World War II that my grandfather had put in his ration tokens. We have about 10 blue ones and about 100 red ones. 5 MM's and 1 MC and ! MV. The blue ones are TX, XY, HY, TV,HH,WH, VV.I wonder if they are worth any money.
Excellent! I love these. We've got a few passed down in my family, too. Let's see them, Linda. And I want to see that coin purse, too. This isn't the time to be bashful. With a hundred of these, what are you trying to do, corner the market? Lol. EDIT: FWIW, they sell, but not for a real lot. Some are scarcer than others, of course. I personally have never come across a complete set of every OPA issue.
Double check that MC, there's no such combination known. The only two combinations that start with M are MM and MV. You did get lucky though if you have the MV like I said last year that's going to be at least $75-$100. Assuming it's in decent condition.
I just came across 845 red opas and have not looked through them yet I did already noticed a few that were off set a little. edited
If you have that many it is a good idea to watch for errors. You can find clips, blanks, double and triple images, "saddle strikes" and "off-centers". OPA tokens weren't made in the same way that coins are, they used sheets of the fiberboard and then impressed the design into the fiberboard. The boards then went through the blanking press and the tokens were punched out. If the board was misaligned or didn't feed properly it created errors. The only "striking" errors are the double and triple image pieces which were the result of the board misfeeding in the press and being printed more than once. the "saddle strikes and "off centers" are the result of errors in the blanking press.
CT-searched "OPA Tokens". "OPA" is too short a word for CT-search. The following URLs contain info actual "in-store moment of use". ...there are two different types red tokens and blue tokens. Each was worth one ration point. The tokens were used to "make change" for the fixed value stamps from your rationing book. Before they were issued, if you bought an item that required say 8 ration points and you gave them the stamp from your book which was worth 10 points, you lost those other two points. After they came out you would get the tokens in change and you could accumulate them and use them like the stamps. These ration booklets contained various small stamps which had no cash value, but were required to purchase food items — for example four "B" stamps for each pound of ground beef or five "A" stamps for a bag of sugar. All store items had a price marked as well as a ration book stamp requirement. So every purchase had to also include the right number of ration stamps. The price of the item was not a factor in the use of these stamps. However, to make exact change, shopkeepers were issued small red and or blue tokens. They were made of a vulcanized fiber and were 16-mm in diameter. These basically were "small change" for stamps from ration books. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/coins/soltaylor080908.html https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/443870/opa-tokens