Old Pas Woodshed in Binghamton

[JOHUNT]

Old Pa's Woodshed in Binghamton

It burned to the ground a few weeks ago. It has been vacant for years.
The reason I bring it up is because I MD'd there last spring. I had been studying maps and it turned that there was once a park there. I didn't find anything valuable, but I did find a token from Wilson Hospital. I'll post pics of it. I just have to find it. Anyone seen one or know why the hospital gave out tokens?

 

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[idahotokens]

Jo--seldom did a business or organization "give out" tokens. They were valuable, the same as cash. There are a couple of tokens from Wilson Hospital in Johnson City, NY shown on Richard's Token Database - TokenCatalog.com - they look to me to be parking tokens. The drill was you could get into the parking lot for the hospital, but you had to have a token to open the gate to get out. So, in this case, the hospital would truly "give out" a token if you were in the authorized group (visitor, vendor, etc.) and not just somebody going to the movie theater next door and wanted a place to park.

Other scenarios for hospitals to use tokens were the token-operated bedside radios used in the 1940s and the commissary in some mental institutions. Radio tokens were purchased by the patient or their relatives, and the patient could use them as they wanted - the radios were made by the Dahlberg company and usually had a small speaker that could be placed under the bed pillow to keep the sound audible for just the patient. In the second case, patients could buy candy and maybe tobacco at the hospital commissary, but tokens were used so that unscrupulous staff couldn't take money from patients.

John in the Great 208

 

[JOHUNT]

Cool! Thanks for the info. I remember seeing that link when I was researching my find. Those pictured are exactly what I have. I wish I knew the timeframe of when it would've been used and if it has any collector value.

 

[idahotokens]

Jo--parking tokens generally date 1980 to present and few have much collector value - usually <$5. Hospital, Health Care & Medical Services, New York - UHS is their website - maybe you could contact them and see if their operations (not operating) folks could tell you when the tokens were in use.
John in the Great 208

 

[JOHUNT]

It's still cool to me. I live 4 blocks from Wilson hospital and alot of my family members were born there.