Welcome to Token-Trade.com
Between 1860s to the 1940s merchants began using trade tokens as a form of currency to attract returning customers and to advertise their businesses. Tokens ranged from one cent to fifty cents on average. Often they had the business name and the address along with the denomiation. Tokens that are missing city/state information are known as maverick tokens and are a little harder to track down the history behind them.
Token merchants were usually merchantiles, but cigar store, pool halls, saloons and brothel were common merchants as well.
Just like coin collecting, token collecting has become quite popular and generally tokens are hard to come by. Most tokens that are introduced into the market today are either from private collections or commonly recovered by metal detecting old communites or cities.
There are many books and guides written for tokens broken down by particular states. The easiest way to begin collecting tokens is purchasing them on eBay. There are many interesting tokens that are quite affordable, but may be historically significant for you.
Let Token-Trade.com be your connection to finding these great tokens of history. As the site grows and develops, our goal is to provide as much information on vintage token collecting to help promote this great hobby.
Hot Auctions
Most Watched Tokens Auctions currently on eBay
