New (To Me) Tokens for my Collection

I spent a bunch of time the past few days to find out exactly what these odd, round coin-like items were in my plastic bag. I had just completed my inventory of foreign coins and decided I needed to do something about these tokens.

First off, I found that two of the items were not tokens but were, in fact, foreign coins. The first one I immediately assumed to be a counterfeit of a Roman coin but after a whole bunch of research, I've determined it to be a real coin. The Roman coin turned out to be made during the Emperor Vespasian time around 70 A.D. and is a silver coin in pretty worn condition. It might be worth $6.00.

The second actual coin I found turned about to be a Chinese Cash Coin from the Jen Tsung time (1796 - 1820) and the mint mark indicates it was minted in Boo-Yuwan (Peking) Board of Public Works. Again, this coin might be in the $2 or $3.00 range.

But back to the tokens!

I had a blast researching these guys. The first one I looked at was an Italian Telephone Token minted by EMS (Emiolio Senesi Medaglie) in January 1975. Apparently, these are somewhat collectible since there is an entire forum dedicated to just telephone tokens from around the world. I'm not sure but my best guess is that it is worth somewhere between $1 and $20.00. Here's a photo of a similar token.

The next token was the Goldblatt Brothers 1/2 cent Token. This immigrant family opened a Goldblatt's Department store in Chicago before World War I. Sometime after 1928, they started minting these wonderful little tokens. They continued making them until sometime around 1939. The one I have is in OK condition but is probably worth something around $10 to $20.00.

The last tokens I researched were the red and blue OPA tokens. These cardboard tokens were made for the Office of Price Administration in 1944 and 1945. The Office of Price Administration used OPA stamps, coins and chits for rationing. The OPA coins (commonly called OPAs) were used for change for food. They were used by retailers to give change back for food bought with ration stamps. Blue tokens were used for processed foods; red tokens for meats and fats. These tokens have a two letter combination on each of them (but no one seems to know what those two letters mean). My three Blue OPA tokens are worth about 80 cents each and my two Red OPA tokens are about 40 cents each.

I also researched another token, the Missouri Sales Tax token and discovered I didn't even know about these tokens. Evidently, they were very popular back when people were paying 10 cents for a piece of candy and the merchant had to collect 3% sales tax. Anyway, Missouri was the last state to stop using these tokens (in 1961). The one I have is red and plastic and might be worth 1 to 2 cents.

Although I am not a big collector of tokens, I had a great time doing research for these things!