Ingle 1914 / Kitchen Club 1 A E F Trace Token - Need ID

[Pocket Change]

Token is bronze, 17mm. Need City & State

 

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[Mackaydon]

Don't know city and state, but can give you info on the Ingle System: The Ingle System was used by Merchants 1908 to 1919, as a means of offering "Credit" to its customers.. instead of giving cash out they gave these Tokens that had different denominations. .01, .05,.10, .25, .50,.$1.00, $5.00 and sometimes $10.00 coins that could only be spent in the Merchants Store.
AEF might be associated with the American Expeditionary Force (WW I) though that's just a guess.
Don.......

 

[Mackaydon]

There is a book available that attributes these Ingle System tokens; you may wish to inquire at your local library for a copy.
A Checklist and Aid to Attributing Ingle System Scrip: Lloyd E Wagaman: Amazon.com: Books
Don...

 

[intimer]

oddly enough the Wagaman's Ingle book does not attribute the token. it is listed but does not have location. i do not know why some have location and some don't.
i have a larger listing that's suppose to be more Ingle listings, but it does not show location either.

 

[idahotokens]

I've corresponded with the fellow who is the current expert on Ingle tokens. He has copies of the ledgers the Ingle company made when shipping token (and other) orders. These records have proven attributions for a lot of Ingle tokens, but there are mysteries still surrounding many, including this one.

The Wagaman book has an awful lot of errors in it - Lloyd Wagaman did not have all the tools that are available to researchers today, so he could not prove attributions to the same degree that is expected today. He had a listing of known merchants and denominations at the time of his listing, 1987, and Dun and Bradstreet-type business directories for ca. 1909-1920. He painstakingly went through the directories and matched business listings with token inscriptions. Since the Ingle tokens were made in Ohio, and their marketing effort was concentrated on grocery stores, first there and later farther afield, he started out with the business directories from OH and worked outward. I cannot imagine how many long hours he spent on this project! But, when it came to something like a token that said "A. B. Smith", had he gone through the entire set of directories, he probably could have found dozens of matches. He, however, stopped at the first match that seemed logical to him. That has proven right in many cases, but incorrect in many others.

In the case of this particular token, Kitchen Club / A. E. F., the directories seldom show business names - they show the owners' names. So it is nearly impossible to figure all the people with initials A. E. F. in an appropriate business in the proper years. That is assuming that those initials are of a person. There is a chance like Don indicated that they represent something else. Unfortunately the "Ingle Shipping Records" don't show a match and other searches have not yet either. The search continues...
John in the Great 208