Here are 3 tokens I have found over the years, at least my favorites anyway. Sales tax tokens don't get me too excited so i left those out.
One is a pool hall token from where I live, the guy that ran it was known as "Doodle" McDonald and his place was known as a notorious gambling den. I actually just eyeballed this one at my uncles when I was visiting with him while he was doing some yard work. At first with all the dirt on it, my guess was it was just a slug but after a light washing I was pleasantly surprised to see what it actually was
Then I have a 5 cent token from Ford & Cave's drug store. Their store was just a few doors east of where Doodle's pool hall was located. This was found in a park across the street from where the drugstore used to be. Some local ladies were putting in some rosebeds so I took the opportunity to hunt the ground. The park area now used to be an open space between the RR tracks/depot and the original street in town, which dates back to 1868.
The last token I have is an 1876 quarter that had been made into a love token, I found it in a yard of an old victorian era home here. On the original face of the coin someone scratched in Feb XXI which I am guessing is a date of importance for whomever it belonged to originally. As best I can tell, the engraved letters are DLK.
I have included some photos of the area of the original part of town for fun
Great tokens! The most recent KS book lists four different merchants from Ellis, but not these two. That is the beauty of collecting tokens! It is nowhere as mature a hobby as coin collecting, so new discoveries are always coming to light.
How about posting these to www.tokencatalog.com - if you don't want to go to the effort, give me permission and I'll get them there. What is the diameter of the two Ellis ones?
I will have to measure the tokens for accuracy but the drugstore token is about dime-sized and the pool hall is about nickel sized. Is the token site just a reference site? What other merchants are listed for Ellis? Is there a link to a site?
tokencatalog.com is a project, along the lines of a wiki, where the goal is to picture and describe all tokens and to make that information available online. It is totally non-commercial and is being done with volunteer time and work. It was started by the (now) President of the National Token Collectors Association (NTCA) and most of the programming to make the site work is his own. The site is a bit slow at times, and can be a bit difficult to learn to use, but the objective can't be beat! Even though there are now over a quarter of a million tokens listed on the site, none of the Ellis, KS ones (for instance) have been posted yet.
The 2005 Kansas Trade Tokens book by Oller and Johnson lists the Ellis Smoker, C. N. Manker Cash Store (a maverick, i.e. without town and state, but Manker is referenced in the 1912 KS Gazetteer as having a general store in Ellis), North Side Pool Room, and Savoy Lunch Room.
The catalog sounds like a cool idea. Let me get the weight and measurements and you can add them to the catalog.
I collect old pics of Ellis and of the four you mentioned, I have a pic that shows the Smoke shop, the others I am not familiar with yet but will look closer, maybe I will see them in a photo. The smoke shop was across the street and 3 doors west of the D. McDonald pool hall. The building is still standing.
Ellis Kansas is pretty close to Hays Kansas, right? My wife and I took a trip there a few years back. My grandpa was born & raised in Liebenthal Kansas (Rush County). I went detecting there and in La Crosse KS ~ I didn't find a lot of stuff . . . . a few silver rosie dimes, and some wheat cents. I wanna go back there some day soon!
Got dog tags? I'm looking for old dog tax tags and dog license tags! From any city, any county, and any state (prefer pre-1970) ~ oddcoins@msn.com
Ellis Kansas is pretty close to Hays Kansas, right? My wife and I took a trip there a few years back. My grandpa was born & raised in Liebenthal Kansas (Rush County). I went detecting there and in La Crosse KS ~ I didn't find a lot of stuff . . . . a few silver rosie dimes, and some wheat cents. I wanna go back there some day soon!
Yes, Ellis is 14 miles west of Hays. Liebenthal is a neat little town, as is LaCrosse. I haven't detected either town yet but they could have good possibilties. The parking lot at the big church in Victoria was torn up recently and I heard a @.50 gold coin was found there. Of course I didn't find out about all that until after the concrete work was all done.... oh well.
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Originally Posted by oddcoins
