Adventures in Exonumia

My little collection of non-money is growing every so slowly. Exonumia, if you’ll remember, is the collecting of money-like objects that aren’t really legal tender. I’ve picked up a few odd arcade tokens here and there and I tend to pocket one casino coin before I lose it all, but this weekend I happened across a little cache of tokens at a rummage sale, all a little different than anything else I’ve found in a while.

We stopped at a rummage sale which advertised some antiques and sounded like it was an estate sale. The classified ad said they were open until 1pm; we walked up at 12:55, so we weren’t expecting a lot, but we did pick up some good things, including a handful of interesting tokens.

First up is this locally-grown wooden nickel. Wooden tokens have been around since the 1930s, used as a substitute currency in times of money shortages. Since then, however, their unique shape and feel has resulted in the wooden discs being used as keepsakes, coupons, and tokens in a variety of ways. This particular wooden coin hails from the Leonard Cafe, in Leonard, ND. The front offers “Good For One Drink”, with a picture of a cocktail glass, a design which isn’t particularly old, since you can still order them here. A lot of small-town cafes do double-duty as the local tavern, too, so it’s possible the cafe served something harder than black coffee. The front reads, “This Too Shall Pass…Leonard Cafe” – which might have some Alcoholics Anonymous implications, since the group has taken that philosophical phrase as its own.

The latter might be more true than I originally thought, because right next to the “free drink” were some Alcoholics Anonymous tokens. The first, on the left, is a rather standard anniversary token, in this case honoring 1 month of sobriety; there were several others in the sequence, but I decided on only getting one. The circle with the number is raised slightly, and the reverse has a slightly depressed center, which would allow these coins to stack nicely as you slowly built up your years of freedom. The one on the right was minted for a specific AA chapter, the Primary Purpose Club, an addiction recovery center in the Denver, CO area, with the correct phone number imprinted and an image of the ever-present coffeepot. Both coins have the serenity prayer on the back. While I’ve known people who carry their own hard-earned AA tokens in their pockets, I don’t think I’ve ever held one before, and I was surprised at how solid and heavy they are. A variety of manufacturers produce AA tokens, so the quality varies from plastic to gold-plated keepsakes, but these are both nice, solid brass. These are also the first two (and now with two below) tokens I’ve owned that don’t have a monetary or barter value: they were meant to be kept, not traded.

A token from a small North Dakota town and a AA coin from a Denver treatment center proves the previous owner travelled quite a bit. I ignored the generic arcade tokens and Showbiz Pizza tokens, but the three to the right were the only other really interesting ones, and their size was a big part of it. The one on the left is from the Bayfront Blues Festival, Duluth, MN, and dated 1989. The one on the right is from the Mount Rushmore National Monument and Rushmore Cave. The last one at the bottom is from the Fort Cody Trading Post, North Platte, NE, “Buffalo Bill’s Home Town” according to the reverse. All three are different in size than the quarter-sized and silver-dollar sized coins in my little collection: these are just larger than a Sacajawea dollar, each measuring 1-1/8″ across. This is a relatively common car wash token size, and is actually pretty close to the common 28mm token size used in the 19th century for Hard Times tokens and the like. Each of these three tokens is made from slightly different materials. The blues festival token is a very light aluminum coin, while the other two are brass, and the Mount Rushmore token is nickel-plated for a silvery finish. Two of these, the blues coin and the Fort Cody coin, have reeded edges, which is unusual compared to my other non-coins, too. The blues festival token appears to have been used for purchases, because the reverse notes “no refund”, “trade only”, and “no cash value”. The other two are tourist keepsakes; Mount Rushmore, of course, is a national treasure, while Fort Cody is a tourist trap of sorts, a destination and a side-trip depending on your level of devotion. The Cody coin simply says, “GOOD LUCK,” and I hope it worked well for its previous owner.

That reminds me why I like finding and keeping odd tokens and unusual coins. A country’s money is kept within strict tolerances of size, weight, and design, their mint runs are counted and documented, and errors are extensively documented. In the world of exonumia, you never know when you might run across a small-town wooden nickel, a brass disk from a tourist trap, or a reminder of personal diligence. Collecting tokens is an unbelievably open-ended industry, and that keeps it interesting. People have been making personal coinage for centuries, and in the next few minutes, for a few hundred bucks, you could mint your own custom coins online – there’s no end to what can be added to a collection.

Exonumia collectors information

NUMISMATIC AND COLLECTORS CLUBS:

Admiral George Dewey Collectors Club
c/o Julian Marwell
317 W. 89th St., Apt 4E
NY, NY 10024 212-787-5850

ALABAMA NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
P.O. Box 110397
Birmingham, AL 35211


AMERICAN CREDIT CARD COLLECTORS SOCIETY Link
Jerry Ballard
POB 1992
Midlothian VA 23112 fax: 804-744-6600

AMERICAN ISRAEL NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION Link
P.O. Box 13063
Silver Spring, MD 20911-3063

AMERICAN MEDALLIC SCULPTURE ASSOCIATION LINK
P.O. Box 1201
Edmonds, WA 98020

AMERICAN NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION Link
818 North Casade Ave.
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

AMERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY Link
Broadway at 155th St.
New York, NY 10003

AMERICAN POLITICAL ITEMS COLLECTORS Link
P.O. Box 340339
San Antonio, TX 78234

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PORTUGUESE NUMISMATICS
3491 Clearview Ave.
Columbus, OH 43220

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CHECK COLLECTORS Link
Lyman Hensley
473 East Elm
Sycamore, IL 60178
Annual & regional meetings

AMERICAN SOCIETY of MILITARY INSIGNIA COLLECTORS Link

AMERICAN TAX TOKEN SOCIETY Link
Carl Cochrane
12 Pheasant Dr.
Asheville, NC 28803

AMERICAN VECTURIST ASSOCIATION
P.O. Box 1204
Boston MA 02104

AMUSEMENT TOKEN COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION
328 Avenue "F"
Redando Beach, CA 90277

ANCIENT COIN CLUB of LOS ANGELES Link
K. L. Friedman
16255 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1200
Encino, CA 91436-2363

Ancient Numismatic Collectors
P.O. Box 954
Fowlerville, Michigan 48836

ANTIQUE ADVERTISING ASSOCIATION of AMERICA Link
POB 76
Persburg IL 62675

ARIZONA EXONUMIST SOCIETY
P.O. Box 15005
Phoenix, AZ 85060

ARKANSAS NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
PO Box 56344
North Little Rock, AR 72215

ARMENIAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY Link
8511 Beverly Park Pl
Pico Rivera, CA 90660

Atlantic Provences Wooden Money Association
C/O Glenn B. Rodger
165 Phillip Drive
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3C 1E8

THE BANK TOKEN SOCIETY
P.O. Box 99
Newtonville, MA 02104

BARBER COIN COLLECTORS SOCIETY Link
c/o Eileen Ribar
2053 Edith Place
Merrick, NY 11566

BLUE RIDGE NUMISMATIC ASSOCIATION LINK
Contact: BRNA, P.O. Box 569, Selmer TN 38375
Bourse: Ed Fritz - PH: 937-436-3003

Bust Half Nut Club -- Bust Quarter Collectors Society
Glenn Peterson
3901 Park West Blvd
Knoxville TN 37923
ANA annual and regional meetings