🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Made an Auction Purchase but not sure what I bought!! Counting Tokens? Miner Tags? HELP!! :-)

[Seek Ye First]

I recently bid on and won an interesting lot of "something" that appears old and collectible but not sure what I bought! The auction site wasn't sure either! There are several various items inside a cigar box: Handmade leather-type sleeve to hold some tokens; handmade folding holder for 15 of the tokens that has a leather-like interior nailed to parts of a White Owl Cigar box; old fabric pouch with drawstrings; old compass and 38 handmade tokens with numbers stamped on them. The tokens appear to be aluminum or a similar metal. Anyone have an idea on what these are and were used for?? I've attached plenty of pics to help you solve this mystery. Many thanks!!

 

[Red-Coat]

Interesting.

I would think they're home-made employee tags from a sizeable industrial premises such as a mill, or workshop. The employee is assigned a number, and the presence of his/her tag in the leather holder (of which I guess you have only part, or one of many) is used to indicate that person is not on the premises. Used mainly for safety reasons, such as to account for everyone in the event of a fire.

These were commonly used in mining operations to keep tabs on who was in the mine, but all of the miner's tags I've seen were holed so they could be hung on a board that had a hook for each number. Also usually brass and more professionally punched with the employee number.

 

[Seek Ye First]

Interesting.

I would think they're home-made employee tags from a sizeable industrial premises such as a mill, or workshop. The employee is assigned a number, and the presence of his/her tag in the leather holder (of which I guess you have only part, or one of many) is used to indicate that person is not on the premises. Used mainly for safety reasons, such as to account for everyone in the event of a fire.

These were commonly used in mining operations to keep tabs on who was in the mine, but all of the miner's tags I've seen were holed so they could be hung on a board that had a hook for each number. Also usually brass and more professionally punched with the employee number.

Thanks for your reply! I also noticed that on the back (front?) of the handmade folder from the cigar box with 15 circle hole slots, the written words: "TOP GOLD" (Pic attached). Kinda makes me wonder is this was a folder to hold the tokens of the top gold producers? The mystery thickens!

 

[Peterw]

That’s a vintage bingo game

 

[dz302]

Great find... there will be someone that knows for sure. The small cloth bag looks exactly like the bag of gold rush gum from the 50s and 60s. The cigar box should be able to date... find the bottom on the stuff anyway. Wonder what the significance of the compass might be.

dz

 

[Red-Coat]

That’s a vintage bingo game

With numbers up to the 200s?

 

[robertk]

A quick search says the White Owl cigar box is from the 1930’s, but the Penn cigar box is 1970’s. That still doesn’t tell you what the tokens were for, though.

 

[tamrock]

Hard for me to say, but Red-Coat may be right. I was a miner at the AMAX Climax Molybdenum Company in Colorado from 1977 to 1983. At the beginning of each shift the boss would hand you one of two numbered brass tags hanging on a board and move the other to another position on the board that indicated your heading underground. When you got out of the mine you'd give the brass tag you had back to the boss and he'd put your tag and the other together, which indicated your out of the mine. It was referred to as Brass'n In & Out. Its a system still widely used in the mining industry. Though some companies have installed an RFID system where the tracking of an employee is monitored electronically throughout various locations in the mine and can even track which equipment that employee was operating when and where.

 

[pepperj]

Hard for me to say, but Red-Coat may be right. I was a miner at the AMAX Climax Molybdenum Company in Colorado from 1977 to 1983. At the beginning of each shift the boss would hand you one of two numbered brass tags hanging on a board and move the other to another position on the board that indicated your heading underground. When you got out of the mine you'd give the brass tag you had back to the boss and he'd put your tag and the other together, which indicated your out of the mine. It was referred to as Brass'n In & Out. Its a system still widely used in the mining industry. Though some companies have installed an RFID system where the tracking of an employee is monitored electronically throughout various locations in the mine and can even track which equipment that employee was operating when and where.

I often wonder why these rags are found detecting. Just lost souvenirs, the miner quit and tossed his tag.
Mine went belly up and these were just part of the inventory spread out amongst the employees.

 

[tamrock]

I often wonder why these rags are found detecting. Just lost souvenirs, the miner quit and tossed his tag.
Mine went belly up and these were just part of the inventory spread out amongst the employees.

I found one at an old coal mine site, which makes sense, but yes these tags have been found by detectors in many areas, which might not have a history of a minesite.

 

[pepperj]

I found one at an old coal mine site, which makes sense, but yes these tags have been found by detectors in many areas, which might not have a history of a minesite.

A numbered tag could have been used for many different reasons.
The "Miner'sTag" distinction probably has been over used.

 

[Jatrox]

Looks like the chips my grandpa used to draw your starting position for heat races back in the day. The system is still used at many tracks today but now we use poker chips with numbers written with a sharpie

 

[Rmeav8r]

Home made prison lotto tokens or similar game pieces.
Also, just curious, what price range was this item in?

 

[cudamark]

All the true miner's tags I've seen were holed. They were just moved from one nail board to another to show who was in the mine. The miner didn't actually take the tag with him. Same with tool tags.....holed and stayed on a board to show who had a particular tool. With tool tags, each mechanic had a number and many tags with that same number. These tags are definitely odd.

 

[Seek Ye First]

Home made prison lotto tokens or similar game pieces.
Also, just curious, what price range was this item in?

I was the only bidder and got the lot for around $25 (including S/H charges).

 

[tamrock]

All the true miner's tags I've seen were holed. They were just moved from one nail board to another to show who was in the mine. The miner didn't actually take the tag with him. Same with tool tags.....holed and stayed on a board to show who had a particular tool. With tool tags, each mechanic had a number and many tags with that same number. These tags are definitely odd.

The mine employee going underground always takes the brass with his-hers number on their person. I had my own personal contractors tag for my dealings at Chevrons Molybdenum mine in Questa NM, because I had a consignment of merchandise in a warehouse underground I inventoried once a month. I was able to tag myself in and out because I wasn't required to be there at any specific time as the company underground employees were.

 

[racer67x]

Looks like the chips my grandpa used to draw your starting position for heat races back in the day. The system is still used at many tracks today but now we use poker chips with numbers written with a sharpie

we used the poker chips in a small manila envelope.. till they realized we could see the numbers when held up to the sun. lol
now its digital.

 

[Retired Sarge]

Similar concept used as tool chits also.

 

[Buff]

I recently bid on and won an interesting lot of "something" that appears old and collectible but not sure what I bought! The auction site wasn't sure either! There are several various items inside a cigar box: Handmade leather-type sleeve to hold some tokens; handmade folding holder for 15 of the tokens that has a leather-like interior nailed to parts of a White Owl Cigar box; old fabric pouch with drawstrings; old compass and 38 handmade tokens with numbers stamped on them. The tokens appear to be aluminum or a similar metal. Anyone have an idea on what these are and were used for?? I've attached plenty of pics to help you solve this mystery. Many thanks!!

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I have no idea what these are. Could it be some sort of compass game/exercise someone dreamed up to teach kids how to use a compass, where from a central point the disks are marked in degrees to indicate where the blank ones are located on a compass? The blank disks could have been points.