When A Rare Token Becomes Not So Rare

[Glenn in CO]

Our club had an outing a couple of weeks ago to a site of an old coal mining town. The club has detected this site for over two decades and the finds are tougher to come by. There were 15 club members over a weekend and they found a few Indian Heads, Wheat cents, V Nickels, tokens and a watch fob.

For me on Saturday's hunt was somewhat lackluster. I dug a few decorative buttons, a cufflink, quite a few pants buttons, harmonica parts and of course a lot of the usual watch parts, head stamps and common coal mining camp trash items. The button with a bear and a flag had the words stamped around the edge which side "North Pole Bear Coat." The button comes from a Peary Coat made to celebrate Admiral Peary conquering the North Pole.

Sunday's hunt started out a little more promising with a “12 1/2 cents in trade” token, 1901 Indian cent and towards the end of the day a” 5 cents in trade” token. Of course, I dug more of the common coal mining trash items. The “12 1/2 cent in trade” token was from Frederick, Colorado and C. Calkins was the proprietor. How this token ended up at this location is a mystery as the town of Frederick is hundreds of miles from this coal mining camp. The token was slightly bent and had some damage from lying in the ground all this time. I did some research and I couldn’t find the token listed in any token books or on the internet. Also, I couldn't find any information on C. Calkins. Well so far, so good and a possibility that I found a rare unknown token. The other “5 cents in trade” token was a common token with the letter "L" on one side. When I got home, I was sorting through the other items I dug and one of the items was maybe a brass case for matches, with the top missing. It was packed with dirt inside, but the weight indicated there was something else inside. I took a small screwdriver and began digging the dirt out and what fell out was six C. Calkins “12 1/2 cents in trade” tokens from Frederick, Colorado.

Well, I guess that token isn't rare anymore.

BTW our club newsletter editor CPT_GhostLight is doing much better and was detecting that weekend.

 

[JCR]

That's a neat place with some equally neat finds.  Glad the Cpt'n is doing better & able to be out hunting with you all.

[strick]

Cool story and a great hunt...glad to hear Ghostlight is doing better  as well..

strick

[F350Platinum]

What a great lot of finds, Glenn! 👍 That's so cool to get a surprise like that. 

Excellent photos, and glad also to hear the good Cap'n is well. 

[GB_Amateur]

Amazing (and clever 😉) story; thanks for sharing that!  Is a trip to the library (and/or a visit to Newspapers.com) in order?

I know very little about tokens.  But the shape seems unusual.  (I thumbed through my only token book and didn't see a single photo of a token that had the same shape as yours.)

I can't see all seven very well, but at least some look to be in decent condition.  I suspect someone (several someones?) out there would be quite interested in these if you were willing to let a few go....  But if you choose that route I would wait until more research can be done.  Trade tokens are a serious collecting area as @abenson , @OregonGregg and others here can attest.

[Glenn in CO]

cemeteries

7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Amazing (and clever 😉) story; thanks for sharing that!  Is a trip to the library (and/or a visit to Newspapers.com) in order?

I know very little about tokens.  But the shape seems unusual.  (I thumbed through my only token book and didn't see a single photo of a token that had the same shape as yours.)

I can't see all seven very well, but at least some look to be in decent condition.  I suspect someone (several someones?) out there would be quite interested in these if you were willing to let a few go....  But if you choose that route I would wait until more research can be done.  Trade tokens are a serious collecting area as @abenson , @OregonGregg and others here can attest.

Thanks GB for the information on Newspapers.com.

I did some research with city directories and thru Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection for Weld County where Frederick, Colorado is located and came up with nothing. I also search census and cemeteries and came up with nothing. One of the club members has a large token collection and he believes it is a saloon token, but I can't find any other information so far.

The six tokens that were in the match case are in excellent condition other than being discolored. The first one I found was a little bent and suffered surface damage from being in the ground for a period of time. I found a token last year from Bucktown, Colorado and all known Bucktown tokens are quite rare. The one I found was not listed anywhere and so far it is the only known token of its kind. I contacted a ebay seller who had sold a Bucktown token in the past and thought my Bucktown token would sell between $500 and $ 1000.

So who knows what these tokens might be worth.

[Hunterjunk]

Finding a match container stuffed with tokens or coins has long been a fantasy of this detectorist . To see that it really can happen is inspirational ! Congrats 

[rvpopeye]

Great hunt finds no doubt.

I found a token of which the token guy at the coin show said "I've never seen that one before" !

"Does that mean it's rare ?"

"No , it means it's a new one !"

"Awwwwwwwwwww" 😩

[gopher]

On 6/11/2024 at 7:12 PM, Hunterjunk said:

Finding a match container stuffed with tokens or coins has long been a fantasy of this detectorist . To see that it really can happen is inspirational ! Congrats 

I found a match case once but there was just a single wooden match in it, but it was still a great find because it was ornate and sterling silver, but in trashed condition, half the lid was missing, the part of the lid that was there was detached from the case, and the body was split along three of four of the sides, if that case was actually in good condition I would have considered it better then any gold I've found