Tokens/coins found in Roman Head bandit

[john t peterson]

Now that you blokes have pulled out of the EU, would you please go back to speaking plain English? Please??

J Peterson
Low strewth in America

[pennymachines]

Owl will do I suppose, although I still can't see it.

It is an amphora isn't it? I can see that now.
Amphorae, pyramids, Pharaohic symbols, owls - all this iconography makes me wonder if the Mortimer Birdsul Mills clan were Freemasons.

Don't worry John - plain English will be resumed as soon as possible.

Don't tell me this isn't Samson destroying the pagan Temple of Dagon...

[tammy]

I have took some more new pictures of the tokens/coins that I found in the 1930s goose neck bandit case window in the 1970s. I still have the gilt gold platted tokens. Also I have got in touch with Freddie Bailey. If anyone might know what they are, it could be him with his many years in the amusement machine trade over here.
tammy

[coppinpr]

I think these might be gaming tokens used in private clubs, usually for card playing (it was not considered "correct" to have cash on the card table). If they are, they are very late examples. It was common practice to put a royal head on the token, often the Prince of Wales. Tokens with Edward the VIII's grandfather Edward VII as prince of Wales are quite common, as are William IV and Victoria. I have never seen a George V. so possibly a Masonic club gambling token.

[brigham]

If they haven't tarnished, then they are likely to be made of gold. That's David, who abdicated, I think, which is right for the age of the machine. It was probably in one of the more 'racy' Gentlemen's clubs.

[tammy]

Thank you coppinpr, you really got me thinking a lot with your interesting reply. You could be right but I still am bordering on token or coin for an event... The trouble is, someone has gone to long lengths to produce the detailed quality of the effigy of the prince, also the milled edges like they have on the old sixpences and halfcrowns. Why gilt these tokens too? Gilting is using a very thin layer of gold so I believe!
The reverse star is interesting and so are the words in capitals GUILD MEMBER T.C. What could the T.C. be?

The coin tokens, as I previously said, were in the front window segment which was probably designed for 3 tokens penny size. They were wrapped in yellowed mag paper that had part of an article about peep machines. You wouldn't have known they were there till I unscrewed the back bit. I have always felt they were something special, probably an original gold award, maybe only done for a while. Someone out there must know???

[tammy]

I got in touch with Freddie Bailey yesterday and he wanted me to send some pictures... however unless I have got it wrong, site private messages and site email don't allow me to send pictures... so maybe the site administrator could copy and paste them to him.
Could the letters T.C. be Trade Craftsmen? Or is it something to do with one of the many amusement machine suppliers emblems from the hay day of machines? I wonder what worth and value they might have? tammy

[gameswat]

Tammy, I really think you're barking up the wrong tree about these being anything to do with the amusement industry. As stated by many of the hardcore collectors here earlier in the thread these have nothing marked on them that in any way correlates with other gold award tokens or standard arcade tokens. The gold award tokens I've had either showed the value or had a blank space to engrave or stamp the value. And I've never seen any coin op tokens with the king or queen on them, or gilded for that matter. I'd guess that an earlier collector in the 60's or early 70's placed them in the machine to use in the Gold Award window since they fitted and that's the only reason. I've done the same thing myself too many times, grabbed whatever tokens or coins would fit the job when I didn't have the originals. And I've found lots of oddball tokens and coins being used in machines because they were something that fitted. Like these American presidents tokens that I found in a British machine in the US as they happen to be the same diameter as a Penny. They were in the machine but have no relationship to the coin-op world.

[treefrog]

I suspect unless it be solid gold will be worth very little.

I love it when I find tokens used in slot machines as over the years apart from odd items wedged in various places you find both manufacturers and operators often used tokens instead of washers and in other mechanical roles. Latest one when restoring a Shefras Payola I found the below disc used as a washer....it states “the official disc of the shove ha’penny control association” there is even a reg design number. Normally they leave tokens associated with operation, but this is is a little different... I always put them back whereI found them, better that way



Loved the Payola by the way and I seem to have a problem wanting to keep all machines I get sorted....

[brigham]

Nothing to do with Alan Freed, then?

[tammy]

Phew!! Wouldn't some of you back pedal if our expert in the amusement trade of old said they are a vintage amusement suppliers gold award tokens from the 30s and possibly worth a sheer fortune!!!
Ha ha let's see if Freddie Bailey has any knowledge on them!!!!!
ps. Seriously I too have had many old slot machine tokens and a few even used as washers or soldered on as a weight but until someone can actually tell me possibly from past knowledge I will still entertain my original thoughts. But thank you for your comments which have been noted. tammy

[pennymachines]

...unless I have got it wrong, site private messages and site email don't allow me to send pictures... so maybe the site administrator could copy and paste them to him.

Why not just send him this link? viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5530&start=10#p52520

Your pics are still not very clear because the camera was moving.

[gameswat]

Tammy, hey believe what you think is right, but you asked on a public forum for our thoughts, your lack of any proof isn't changing my mind. Have you asked on token and medal collecting forums? Because asking on a coin-op forum and then claiming that nobody who was there at the time has shown proof otherwise isn't great research, especially when it seems to have nothing to do with anything coin-op. The fact is nowhere on the thing does it have a known company or operators name or say "Gold Award"! I could just as easily say it's a very rare One Penny coin, purely because it's the same size and has the monarchs image, doesn't matter that it's not stamped One Penny does it?!

[tammy]

Hi,
I used to collect coins as a young man and gave away to a young relative that collection just a few years ago.
Funnily, I have just dug out the slot machine tokens I have.
Can't help feeling the 3 tokens found in the Roman head bandit look interesting though.

[tammy]

With putting the tokens on site I did it under Questions and Answers... perhaps someone knows what they are.
All up to now have been guesses I suppose. I go on forums when I have a problem with vehicles and work on what people often know what the problem is... ie I wouldn't accept always what advice comes from them. And so it is at the moment with these tokens. They are of interest surely! I know the part history of the bandit in question as it was in a ring of machines in the 1950s and 60s. I will have played on it as a child. That compartment hadn't been opened for a long time when I bought the machine from the arcade owner in a batch in the early 1970s.

[pennymachines]

You could take a decent photo of both sides of your coins (in focus, camera on tripod or other fixed support, diffuse lighting) and email them to: https://sites.google.com/site/malstokens/contact

Mals is the definitive website on British coin machine, vending, military, trade and other assorted tokens.

Writing on portrait side reads "HRN The Prince of Wales, KG"

Did you mean, "HRH"?
Can you make out which Prince of Wales is depicted? What metal? Coin, medal or token, "Guild Member" and a hexagram hint at masonic.

[coppinpr]

It's clearly, as Bingham says David, who became king Edward VIII for a short time, (Jan 1936 till Dec 1936) that likeness would date from abut 1934/35.

A closer look at the star shows it to be an interlocked triangle star so definitely not masonic (the masonic star is two triangles symbolising a masons square, plum line and callipers laid one over the other) but possibly Jewish.

This very early Jennings clock I have has an unusual use for tokens - they are attached to the fan as fly weights.

[brigham]

Jewish or Methodist.
Methodists also use this symbol, along with (surprisingly) the Burning Cross.

[coppinpr]

The use of burning crosses by non-Catholic religions is not unusual. The cross is very much a Catholic symbol, not a protestant one (no one buried in Protestant England in the 17th Cent would have considered having a cross as a grave marker - too papist). Living as I do in Lewes I know all too well about the Protestant burning cross.

[tammy]

Thank you coppinpr and bingham for your earlier observations about the tokens. Tammy