TOKEN RATING SYSTEM(S)

[IdahoMan38]

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE RATING SYSTEMS OTHERS GO BY, I SEEM TO BE A LITTLE OUT OF DATE WITH WHAT WAS LISTED IN "IDAHO MERCHANT TOKENS (1967), BY AUTHOR FRANK R. SCHELL OF IDAHO (WHO IS NOW PASSED AWAY). HERES HOW HIS RATING SYSTEM WENT.
R-1 COMMON 35 & OVER KNOWN
R-2 SCARCE 5-35 KNOWN
R-3 VERY SCARCE 15-25 KNOWN
R-4 RARE 10--15 KNOWN
5-5 VERY RARE 5-10 KNOWN
R-6 EXTRA RARE 3-5 KNOWN
R-7 ALMOST UNIQUE 1-2 KNOWN
I HAVE BEEN IN THE HOBBY FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS NOW. I WROTE THE AUTHOR FRANK SCHELL IN ABOUT 1994, WHEN I FIRST STARTED REALLY GETTING INTO THE TOKENS, WITH A QUESTION ABOUT A TOKEN I HAD FOUND FROM MY HOMETOWN, WHICH HE HADNT HAD LISTED IN EITHER OF HIS TWO BOOKS, AND HE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO REPLY. I THINK I HAVE PROBABLY FOUND ABOUT 6 UNKNOWN IDAHO TOKENS NOW, WITH CLAYTONIA IDAHO BEING MY FIRST GHOST TOWN TOKEN, ONE OF MY LATEST. I ENJOY THE TOKEN ASPECT OF THE HOBBY AS YOU GET TO KIND OF DRIFT THROUGH TIME, AND KIND OF IMAGINE HOW THE TOKEN MIGHT HAVE BEEN LOST, AND THE HISTORY BEHIND THE MERCHANT, TOWN, ETC. STILL NEVER FOUND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT THE MERCHANT, O.A. KOSHNICK, FROM CLAYTONIA.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[IdahoMan38]

ALSO



CLAYTONIA(POST OFFICE 1914-1918). NEARBY OR EARLY MARSING, OWYHEE COUNTY.

IN 1915 A MR. FLEMING BUILT A STORE IN THIS LOCATION AND NAMED IT CLAYTONIA, IN HONOR OF BENJAMIN CLAY, WHO OWNED THE LAND ON WHICH THE STORE WAS BUILT.

THIS COULD BE THE SAME STORE WITH A LATER OWNER, CIRCA 1916-1920, WHICH WOULD MAKE THIS TOKEN ABOUT 90 YEARS OLD.

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Re: TOKEN RATING SYSTEM(S) - RARITY SCALE & PRICING

VACKETTA IN ILLINOIS USED R1 TO R6. Most others use R1 to R 10. They usually break down like this .....

R1 - 500+ known
R2 - 350 - 499 known
R3 - 200 - 349 known
R4 - 100 - 199 known
R5 - 50 - 99 known
R6 - 20 - 49 known
R7 - 10 - 19 known
R8 - 5 - 9 known
R9 - 2 - 4 known
R10 - 1 known

As a general rule you only own an R10 if you discover an unknown token. Obviously if you find a token that was listed as R10 there are now two of them so it becomes an R9. For pricing when I lay out my token duplicates for trade or at the flea market I ask $2.50 per R. Thus an R-1 is priced at $2.50 and an R-10 is priced at $25. In trading I will trade any dupe I have for any token I want so the prices mean nothing. I rarely find anyone who has any token traders and most cash buyers simply want tokens from their town and want anything they don't have. I usually assess an additional $10 charge on unlisted tokens and price them at $35. I assume every unlisted token is an R-10 unless i personally own a lot of them. Buyers and collectors of tokens will normally fall in these categories .....
town collectors - frequently coin collectors who also want their town
county collectors - a more advanced town collector or someone who got bored
region collectors - usually want their county and the surrounding counties
state collector - some are purists and only want their own state others want surrounding states too which they keep for awhile and eventually trade for tokens from their state
US collectors - some folks try this and get so bogged down they eventually cut back
north american collectors - not too many of these - mainly just buyers not traders
most token collectors prefer merchant good for tokens that have a town name on them or that have been attributed mavericks. A maverick token does not list a town name and no one knows exactly where it came from.
Among token collectors there are sub categories that many people collect. A state collector may also collect transport tokens of north america. Most coin collectors also like merchant hard times tokens and civil war tokens. Many younger folks like the cheap modern video game tokens. Military tokens have become very popular lately. The most common modern token is chuckie cheese without a town name. The word is that there were 50,000 of them made. That makes it five times rarer than the 1909-S-VDB penny. exanimo, siegfried schlagrule

 

[idahotokens]

Of the 30 or so state token catalogs I have in my library, I don't think there are more than a couple that agree on a rating system for rarity or value. Duane Feisel, the author of a recent book on pre-prohibition California saloon tokens, and others, have made an effort to devise standard coding systems for rarity, value, grading, dating, and "certainty of attribution" for maverick tokens. I think these are well-thought through and useful. These rating systems are published in his book and there are copies of them in the publication of the National Token Collectors Association, Talkin' Tokens.

The problem with all of these systems is that they are quite subjective and hold true only for what the person rating a token knows at the moment he publishes that information. For instance, a state cataloguer may have an "unlisted" token reported to him. At that moment, it is assigned a rarity figure equal to the most rare token. But, if the person who reported the token actually found a whole cigar box full of these "unlisted" tokens, the actual rarity should be equal to the most common token. Seldom do people show their whole hand at this or anything else.

At the same time, the cataloguer may assign the token a value. Here is where it gets pretty dicey. The cataloguer has to judge what I call "desirability" - made up of subjective factors like how nice the token looks, what the collector marketplace might bring if there were an actual sale, the value of keywords on the token such as "saloon" or the name of a ghost town, etc. etc. And of course the moment that state catalog is published, that value is the same as "cast in stone". We have all seen the 1905 Sears and Roebuck catalog where the prices are laughable in comparison with today's prices.

So, bottom line is that since tokens do not have an established marketplace like coins do, we cannot hold a lot of stock in catalog rarities or values. I've collected Idaho tokens for well over 40 years and there are a number of rarity 1 tokens (according to Schell's book) that I don't have. Conversely, there have been a number of rarity 7 ones that almost every Idaho collector has.

John in ID

 

[O.A.Koshnick]

Hello IdahoMan38,

Thank you so much for your discovery. O.A. Koshnick was my great-grandfather and I know a lot about him. I'd love to know more about the store he ran in Claytonia. Otto Koshnick had a really, really wild life. He lost his wife (they had 3 young kids at the time) to pneumonia in 1920. I can tell you more if/when you reply.

For the years I can confirm, he owned and ran the store with his wife Stella 1919 and 1920. His store is mentioned twice in local newspapers (that I've found). Once in the Caldwell Tribune (Aug 17 1920) when it says, "Mr. Koshnick is closing out his dry goods in the store and has installed a soda fountain." And another when it is the location where, sadly, his wife (my great-grandma) Stella fell over a box, had internal bleeding, and ended up dying of pneumonia not long after.

We have a picture of Otto standing outside his store that we are looking for in the family files.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE RATING SYSTEMS OTHERS GO BY, I SEEM TO BE A LITTLE OUT OF DATE WITH WHAT WAS LISTED IN "IDAHO MERCHANT TOKENS (1967), BY AUTHOR FRANK R. SCHELL OF IDAHO (WHO IS NOW PASSED AWAY). HERES HOW HIS RATING SYSTEM WENT.
R-1 COMMON 35 & OVER KNOWN
R-2 SCARCE 5-35 KNOWN
R-3 VERY SCARCE 15-25 KNOWN
R-4 RARE 10--15 KNOWN
5-5 VERY RARE 5-10 KNOWN
R-6 EXTRA RARE 3-5 KNOWN
R-7 ALMOST UNIQUE 1-2 KNOWN
I HAVE BEEN IN THE HOBBY FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS NOW. I WROTE THE AUTHOR FRANK SCHELL IN ABOUT 1994, WHEN I FIRST STARTED REALLY GETTING INTO THE TOKENS, WITH A QUESTION ABOUT A TOKEN I HAD FOUND FROM MY HOMETOWN, WHICH HE HADNT HAD LISTED IN EITHER OF HIS TWO BOOKS, AND HE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO REPLY. I THINK I HAVE PROBABLY FOUND ABOUT 6 UNKNOWN IDAHO TOKENS NOW, WITH CLAYTONIA IDAHO BEING MY FIRST GHOST TOWN TOKEN, ONE OF MY LATEST. I ENJOY THE TOKEN ASPECT OF THE HOBBY AS YOU GET TO KIND OF DRIFT THROUGH TIME, AND KIND OF IMAGINE HOW THE TOKEN MIGHT HAVE BEEN LOST, AND THE HISTORY BEHIND THE MERCHANT, TOWN, ETC. STILL NEVER FOUND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT THE MERCHANT, O.A. KOSHNICK, FROM CLAYTONIA.

 

[catyron]

A very late reply, but i liked Siegfried Schlagrule's post and wish to comment on rating systems:

Rarity is certainly a factor with some collectors, but in my experience, most collectors will pay virtually ANY price for a token that falls into their area of interest. By "anthing," i would say $20.00 in good, used (and probably detected / dug) condition and $35.00 and up in fine or mint condition.

Regionals
• Town collectors
• County collectors
• Region collectors
• State collectors
• US collectors
• North American collectors

By genre
• Merchant Good-For tokens
- with town
- by type of merchandise (e.g. Cigars)
- by type of shop (e.g. Bakery, Lunch Counter)
- by name of merchant
• Transport tokens
- by region (see above)
- by sentimental value
• Civil War tokens
• Video Game tokens
• Souvenir of Place tokens which are not Good-For trade tokens
- Landscape or Architectural feature
- Name plus generic Good Luck or other message
• Magicians' throw-out tokens
- With Magician's name
- with Date date
- with Good Luck message
- Generic throw-outs
• Good Luck tokens (with the specific phrase "Good Luck" on them)
- Merchandise hand-outs (not Good-For)
- Store or Shop hand-outs (not Good-For)
- Club (e.g. Don't Worry Club)
- Political (see also Political Campaign tokens)
- Magician (see also Magicians' throw-out tokens
- Celebrity (see also Celebrity Commemorative Collectible tokens)
- Event (see also Event Commemorative Collectible tokens)
• Amulets or Talismans in the form of tokens
- folkloric (e.g. hamsa hand)
- occult (e.g. Seals of Solomon)
• Polical Campaign tokens
• Tokens designed as "Collectibles"
- Celebrity
- Fictional Character
- Event Commemorative

Now, in my opinion, the VALUE of a token is dependent on two things -- condition, which sort of goes without saying, and how many categories it fits into.

Take a 1929 dated Thurston the Magician Throw-Out with the phrase Good Luck, and consider that Thurston was not just "any" magician, but a celebrity in this time, that he changed the dates every year, and that he used these coins in his act, when greeting fans -- that is, he touched the coins, and they were not sold as Collectibles. See why a 1929 Thurston would be worth more than a Green River Whiskey? I sure do, and i pay accordingly.

 

[sjvalleyhunter]

Rarity is certainly a factor with some collectors, but in my experience, most collectors will pay virtually ANY price for a token that falls into their area of interest.

This is a very true statement. A few years back I was detecting in Parlier, CA, and dug a token from the Parlier Saloon. It was quite corroded and not in good shape, but from what I have been told it’s the only one known to exist in the 10 cent denomination. After I had posted here on Treasurenet, a prominent token collector contacted me and offered $400 for it. Owning a piece of local history is more valuable to me than money so I didn’t sell it, but it just goes to show you that if someone wants something bad enough, they will pay almost anything for it.