Chicago Billiard Token

MDVagabond8

Tenderfoot
Oct 14, 2012
7
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Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting

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Thanks don. It appears to be rare, thats pretty cool. Do you think it has value? Im not really a token collector. Im sure someone who is would have more use for it
 

MDV--nice find! As the link Don pointed you to shows, this one has been said to be from Deadwood, SD, but probably only because somebody by the name of J. H. Burns may have had a saloon or billiard hall there in the time appropriate to the diework on this token. Or, maybe it was wishful thinking... With a pretty common name like J. H. Burns, it needs to have some reference to the "Comique" business name for an attribution to be considered trustworthy. So, as a starting point, how about revealing the town or county where you found this?

Old trade tokens do have value, but that is dependent on supply and demand. They are all rare when compared to coins, so the supply is naturally limited. The demand point is the kicker - most collectors want to know where their tokens are from. If the town and state are on the token, then so much the better. But, a token from a Chicago business has a small demand compared to one from, say, Deadwood, SD. And even a Deadwood token is in less demand than one from a true ghost town in a popular state. But tokens without town and state ("Mavericks") are generally in less demand than ones with - this is largely due to the fact that attributions are tough to prove. For instance, in the 1900 Census there were over 75,000 people by that name in the USA. Of those, 1,700 said their middle initial was H. Without going through all the possibilities of first names, James, Jacob, John, etc. it is safe to say that there were hundreds of J. H. Burns names listed. Of those, a dozen or so were probably in a business that may have used tokens.

Tokens with billiard table maker signatures (Garden City, Brunswick, etc.) - most of them were mavericks - are popular with collectors. So, if you were to put this piece on ePay, I would guess it would bring $25-50 but that is just a guess.

John in the Great 208
 

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