For the Australian collectors: please consider the following tokens and checks as well:
Bread Tokens: There are approx 600 catalogued in Australia, about 60 to 100 in New Zealand. They were used in the same way as milk tokens, easy payment for home delivery so the delivery person did not have to carry or handle cash. Most of the Australian Bread tokens were used in NSW but also used in Victoria and a couple in other states. A request for inclusion of the relevant catalogues has been made. There are a number of Australian bread tokens already listed in the Catalogue but put into the Co-op category which is not appropriate although those few examples were issued by a co-op. There are 100s of vendors with tokens issued for their particular bread delivery rounds.
Someone once suggested that bread tokens were based on the bakers dozen concept. That is, the cost of flour meant that if the customer could commit to purchasing in advance via tokens, the baker could afford to purchase the necessary flour etc, and the customer would receive 13 tokens for the price of 12 or some combination. This could have applied in Australia, but the cataloged tokens were mainly used for payment for home delivery purposes. The use of bread and Milk tokens across Australia (and New Zealand) disappeared with the decline of home delivery services.
Ice tokens: Small number issued in Australia, not aware of any in NZ. The use disappeared with the decline of home delivered Ice. The Australian Milk Token catalogue (William and Shea) includes Ice tokens.
Meat Tokens: A few exist in Australia as well as some coupons. These were ration tokens and fit in the existing category.
Club Checks: These are value stated tokens used inside the club for purchases and fruit machine payouts. Australia has 100s of these. They range from 1d to pound values. Used by the clubs to reduce cash handling or mishandling. I have just requested the inclusion of a large number of Australian Clubs as Issuers so I can start up loading my collection of Club Checks
Co-op checks: These are normally dividend payouts for use in the relevant co-op store. Not many Australian that I am aware of but examples exist in NZ (about 20 or so). The existing Australian co-op tokens listed in Numista are actually bread tokens relating to bread delivery by the co-op bakery
Club Tokens: Used in Fruit Machines or gambling machines in Australian clubs. Referred to as Club Tokens (NSV - non stated value) - and they normally were especially made for the club and have the club name on them. 100s of them, most of them now catalogued by Shea and listed in the Queensland Numismatic Society magazine over the last 10 years. Looking forward to a compiled catalogue even if I have to do it myself.
Fruit Machine tokens: Usually fruit or gambling machines tokens without a club name that were used in other locations. They are normally tagged by the issuer or owner of the fruit machine such as C. Shelley or as a general Fruit Machine token. Not really suitable for the Game or amusement tokens section and there were a large number of them used in Australia including imported tokens from England and USA for imported machines.
Australian and New Zealand Tradesmen Tokens.
These are currently in the catalogue as Coins although traditionally considered as tokens for various legal and practical reasons (poor quality, low weight, non standard sizes and general unwillingness by authorities and the public to accept as payment, and the issuers to redeem). A newspaper story about a token issuer in NZ refusing to accept his tokens for payment for a box of salt resulting in a court case over the issue of Tradesman tokens in NZ and the responsibility for their redemption. Included in the series as catalogued by various researchers including Andrews are some check pieces (Value stated) but most of the series were considered to be one penny or a half penny based on approximate size. Andrews also includes overstamped coins (english, French etc) that were current at that time and which advertised Australian Businesses.
I would suggest a separate area in Coins and not under States (Colonies) as the Tradesmen tokens had little or no legal basis re the states, were used across Australia and New Zealand, were initially banned in Australia (state by state), and then exported to New Zealand who had not yet banned them, who then banned both the Australian and NZ tokens in self-defense.
If you wished to retain them in the Coins catalogue, note that the current catalogues for these items list them by Issuer rather than State. The allocation against state is a holdover from the early Renniks catalogue (Skinner) who set out to attract collectors who were interested in State issues. Renniks later reorganized (and renumbered) his catalogue to listing by issuer in line with Andrews and this approach is continued in Gray.
thanks
MC
. Adding the numbers of beer or milk tokens on Numista from other countries, I think there are enough to create a new categories.
