Not Good Luck Tokens

[aloldstuff]

I hope I can post this without being reprimanded. I have found over my short career md'ing about 7-8 of these tokens. The first one pictured is weird only because it has an address, age of the person, name, and on the back it says Shop Newberry's, which was a store here in town that burnt down many years ago. My wife thinks over 30 years ago. The weird part is that the address is on my street and only a couple of houses away.

This other token had me laughing. I have never seen one with a patend date on it. This one on the reverse has Pat 5-15-25 GEO WHEELER CLEVELAND. The saying is not the typical Good Luck, instead it says YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO H*LL. Actually that last word is spelled out. Has onyone ever heard or seen one of these:huh:thinkingabout:

[fsa46]

A couple neat tokens indeed. thumbsup01 Bet there's a few people you can think of that you would like to give that last token to. lol lol

[Tony Two-Cent]

Quite a coincidence that you found one with an address only a few houses away from yours! That's pretty cool!

These tokens were manufactured by vending machines that were usually located in touristy areas. The purchaser could put any text they wanted on the tokens.

Custom-stamped aluminum lucky tokens are sold from machines at amusement parks. Depositing a coin into the machine causes an aluminum blank to drop down into a holding slot where it is visible. The purchaser selects words to custom-stamp around the flat outer ring by typing the letters to be imprinted one at a time and pulling down on levers on the machine. Each letter selection creates a loud thump as a die comes down and stamps the letter, and the coin is then rotated so that the next letter can be stamped. The letters are raised, all caps, against a cross-hatched background. The cross-hatched background is also used for skip-spaces. No punctuation marks are allowed, only the 26 letters of the alphabet and the cross-hatched blank space. There are 32 spaces that can be filled with letters. Because they are pierced, these tokens only vaguely resemble actual coinage. There are several forms of blanks made, and of course the stamping on them is as individual as the people who buy them.

[coinnut]

I hate them things...when I was doing an amusement park, I would get them a lot. They read really good...quarter and sometimes half dollar >:#I always wanted to try and return some of them to the person listed or to the the next of kin at least.

[Cheap Thrills]

Nice find , these were quite popular in arcades during the 50's . :cool: thumbsup01

[OxShoeDrew]

I remember making one at Lake Quassapaug as a kid. Thanks for the memories. I sang that last sentence :yes:

[jkress]

Very interesting. I haven't heard of those before.
Definitely beats digging a memorial. lol

[coinnut]

Definitely beats digging a memorial. lol


Joe, these represent the broken dreams of not finding a Barber quarter that should have been in the hole instead of a token :daydream: lol[attachimg=1]

Kinda like digging a Memorial after a while :hairpulling:

[JTGOLD]

I have found a few of them too and they do give you a good reading.

[aloldstuff]

I hate them things...when I was doing an amusement park, I would get them a lot. They read really good...quarter and sometimes half dollar >:#I always wanted to try and return some of them to the person listed or to the the next of kin at least.


Well Coinnut I returned the token with the address and name on it to the current owner of that address, actually kitty corner to my house. Seems that he knows this guy, the guys parents owned the house before him and he has found several references to him in the house(writhing on 2x4's Tom was here). Several years ago our town held Dickens of a Day around xmas and several of us were choosen to display our homes to the public(they had to buy a ticket, about 8-10 homes). My neighbor said that at least 50 people to him that they had there pictures taken in his living room as the previous owner was the photographer in our town. He thanked me and said that I really dig up some neat stuff.

[RobW]

Did you ask if we could detect his house while u were giving that to him? :dontknow:

[aloldstuff]

Did you ask if we could detect his house while u were giving that to him? :dontknow:


To nice of a lawn