Iron - Trade tokens are in a category of historical items where research is in its infancy. The first books cataloging them for a given state were in the late 1960s and all they had were descriptions. No histories of the businesses that used them. Over time many state token catalogs in book form have been published, but still the historical information contained in those books ranges from nothing to sketchy. Tokencatalog started out as a method for the proprietor, Richard Greever, to keep track of his Oregon token collection. He opened it up to all tokens on a "crowd sourced" basis, and now it allows historical information to be added to the listings. Even though over half a million tokens are cataloged, only a fraction of them have had historical information added because that depends on volunteer researchers taking the time to add that info.
Yes, as in your example of the MN token, there is nothing there other than the photos and description. The guy who is working on a catalog of MN tokens may or may not have historical info on the piece, but I can understand him not wanting to give that information away on tokencatalog as he is aiming to publish (and sell) a physical book on MN tokens. He has been researching MN tokens and has put countless hours into that work. He deserves to be compensated somehow for his efforts - he would be giving it away if he took the extra time to post all his info on tokencatalog.
How about some other state where somebody has researched and published a catalog of that state's tokens? There are Copyright laws which prohibit someone from just copying all of the information onto tokencatalog. Some copyright owners have given permission so some of that kind of info appears on the site. The same goes with photos. If you put a token on eBay, for instance, you took the pics and own the rights to those pics. That is why tokencatalog requires you to have permission from the photographer to post those pics.
One great value in using tokencatalog, in my opinion, is that there is a single spot to find information about a token. A lot of people think that by posting a token on TreasureNet or Facebook or some other site, that their work is done. There it is. Posted. Done. But I defy anyone to efficiently find the token pictures I posted in one of the many Facebook groups last year. Those sites just don't work that way. Tokencatalog is admittedly a bit tough to use in some instances, but things CAN be found. For instance, I recently assisted a detectorist who had found a piece with much of the business name gone. Using what was visible, I could use tokencatalog to show her a photo of the piece in good condition.
My concern with tokencatalog is that it is a website maintained by one individual. He does have several apprentice editors, but I am not sure any of them could step into his shoes if something happened to him. Plus hosting the website costs money and I don't know whether his "donate here" button produces enough revenue to pay the costs. Everything on the Internet is subject to change. Remember AOL, Netscape, and other popular features? Not so much anymore. The token collecting hobby groups, including NTCA which is associated with tokencatalog, come and go. Hopefully they have succession plans. But that is why I am still an old-school believer in physical books, both for documenting known tokens from a given state and for use in researching the histories of the businesses that used tokens. Many books are available on the Internet, but you would be hard put to find a Dun & Bradstreet business directory on the Internet that would document the token you used as an example. City directories are more readily available, but most of them require a subscription to some service like Ancestry.com to access them. Mr. Suman, who issued the token you have, is shown in a city directory, but it costs me either the $$$ to subscribe (which I think is worth it), or a trip to my tax-dollar supported library, or the LDS Family History Center, to see it.
Bottom line is that, despite its faults, tokencatalog is the best source for info on tokens that exists in one place. The more people willing to support it, either through monetary contributions or through time and effort to document their findings, the better it is.
John in the Great 208
