🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Found this octagonal copper token. Reads Hyde Park Bar. Middle says good for 2 1/2 c. In trade. Back is blank. Cant find info anywhere.

[Sully88US]

 

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[Older The Better]

I may be talking out of my butt but makes me think of sales tax tokens, maybe yours is from the 30’s and it was a local business attempt at the same concept?

 

[DCMatt]

It's a trade token. Popular in the first half of the 20th C.

Looks like there was a Hyde Park Bar in St. Louis around 1910. It was gone by 1918.

From the American Federationist (Union magazine) 1910:

 

[Red-Coat]

Yes, Matt has it. Can't find that particular token but it's very similar in design to another for the Hyde Park Tavern... also in St Louis Missouri, but at a different address. Probably from the same maker.


[Image from the 'Token Catalog' website]

PS: Welcome to Tnet.

 

[Sully88US]

Yes, Matt has it. Can't find that particular token but it's very similar in design to another for the Hyde Park Tavern... also in St Louis Missouri, but at a different address. Probably from the same maker.

View attachment 2020565
[Image from the 'Token Catalog' website]

PS: Welcome to Tnet.

Ty for the info. It's definitely the same token manufacturer.

 

[Sully88US]

Yes, Matt has it. Can't find that particular token but it's very similar in design to another for the Hyde Park Tavern... also in St Louis Missouri, but at a different address. Probably from the same maker.

View attachment 2020565
[Image from the 'Token Catalog' website]

PS: Welcome to Tnet.

Ty. Any chance it was from the 1863 hyde park bar riot in st louis?

 

[Red-Coat]

Ty. Any chance it was from the 1863 hyde park bar riot in st louis?

There's no particular reason to make that connection.and the token is unlikely to be as old as that. Tokens like this were issued by a large number of businesses and, as Matt said, commonly during the first part of the 20th century... although of course earlier ones exist of this and other types. They don't commemorate anything and usually don't have a date.

After tokens established themselves as a means of alleviating the shortage in small change, businesses soon recognised them as a way of engendering loyalty from their customers and for advertising purposes. You might be given them as change when you made a purchase, given them as a bonus or inducement for purchases above a certain value, and some businesses actually sold them to customers at a discount... so you might be able to buy $1.50 worth of tokens for $1 or whatever. The benefit for the business was that this was 'self-generated money' that you could only spend by making a return visit, although some businesses had a mutual agreement with other traders for acceptance of their tokens.

They might also be usable in things like cigar dispensers, juke boxes, pool/billiards tables or gambling machines (as payout), especially in bars if the establishment had such things on their premises.

 

[Sully88US]

There's no particular reason to make that connection.and the token is unlikely to be as old as that. Tokens like this were issued by a large number of businesses and, as Matt said, commonly during the first part of the 20th century... although of course earlier ones exist of this and other types. They don't commemorate anything and usually don't have a date.

After tokens established themselves as a means of alleviating the shortage in small change, businesses soon recognised them as a way of engendering loyalty from their customers and for advertising purposes. You might be given them as change when you made a purchase, given them as a bonus or inducement for purchases above a certain value, and some businesses actually sold them to customers at a discount... so you might be able to buy a $1.50 worth of tokens for $1 or whatever. The benefit for the business was that you could only spend them by making a return visit, although some businesses had a mutual agreement with other traders for acceptance of their tokens.

They might also be usable in things like cigar dispensers, juke boxes, pool/billiards tables or gambling machines (as payout), especially in bars if the establishment had such things on their premises.

Ok. Thanks again. That kind of makes sense since I found a 1916 barber dime a few feet away from it