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Old Arcade Tokens


moycon

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Not exactly sure if this is the right forum to put this topic.

 

I was rolling up some coins tonight and came across a batch of old arcade tokens.

After a quick Tar-nex bath and a little scrubbing, here they are presented for anyone that cares....

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Those are great! They bring back some good memories. Too bad you don't have a "Yesterday's" token. It was a little arcade in San Jacinto Mall in Baytown, TX (just outside Houston) back in the early '80s. I spent a lot of time there.

 

I do remember going to an Aladdin's Castle back in the day. That's really nice.

 

I used to keep one token from each arcade that i would visit. Wish i knew where that collection is now. I guess somewhere in my parent's attic collecting dust.

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I still have some tokens from the Namco Cyberstation in Atlanta, plus a few random generic tokens from other arcades. They remind me of an arcade that lasted maybe a year or two in my old hometown. Normally you got five token for a dollar, but every Monday they gave eight. That was a fun place that I didn't visit anywhere near often enough.

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I still have a few kicking around I don't know what to do with...

 

I remember at the MIT arcade ~8 years ago the tokens were the

same size as Korean 100 won coins (which are worth a quite bit less than

the $.25 the tokens cost). If you bought tokens from the machine

almost half the tokens it would dump out would be 100 won coins

instead...

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I have a PB jar full of old arcade tokens I'll dig out. My Dad worked in Construction road crews back in the 80's and was always finding them. Whenever I would go to an Arcade my Dad would always let me sift through "the jar" to try and find some that were compatible. Some would work, some wouldn't due to being the wrong size or badly damaged from the road. Some where so mashed you couldn't even tell what they were...probably peso's for all I know. Then I grew up and the Arcades dissapeared. Still have the jar somewhere though, I'll have to try cleaning them up like that when I find them. Man I miss the Arcades....

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Italian telephone tokens used to have 3 grooves like that. Two on one side and one on

the reverse in the middle. (This was probably from 25 years ago.) I guess they had a lot of

inflation in the pre-Euro days, so rather than readjust the phones for different amounts of

change several times a year, they had a standard phone token whose price in Lira would

change with inflation. Actually, I guess the subway tokens we use in Boston have the same

principle, but they only change price every few years.

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Those are GREAT! Love them all. Very cool. Any idea what to do with them? Maybe matte them and frame? Might be cool over a computer screen :)

 

I still have three 80's Chuck E Cheese coins (In Pizza we Trust) in my change jar. I think one day I will frame them for the basement. They are year specific (82, 83 and 84 I think is what I have).

 

Its funny how these things so utilitarian become interesting years later. I am sure I tried to use them in soda machines, phones, other arcades, etc. for years. Somehow these rattled around in my change for the past quarter century.

 

C

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Those are GREAT! Love them all. Very cool. Any idea what to do with them? Maybe matte them and frame? Might be cool over a computer screen :)

 

I still have three 80's Chuck E Cheese coins (In Pizza we Trust) in my change jar. I think one day I will frame them for the basement. They are year specific (82, 83 and 84 I think is what I have).

 

Its funny how these things so utilitarian become interesting years later. I am sure I tried to use them in soda machines, phones, other arcades, etc. for years. Somehow these rattled around in my change for the past quarter century.

 

C

 

 

I still have a handfull in my old change box from high school too I think, I seem to remember they were the aladin's castle type.

 

This reminds me, I used to have a zaxxon and everytime I moved it it sounded like it had a million quarters in it. I finally junked the cab and broke open the base where they were stuck and it was all tokens. And not the usual tokens, they all had nekkid people on them.

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Not exactly sure if this is the right forum to put this topic.

 

I was rolling up some coins tonight and came across a batch of old arcade tokens.

After a quick Tar-nex bath and a little scrubbing, here they are presented for anyone that cares....

 

Ooooh I like the Aladdin's Castle one. I spent a LOT of time in the one near me. All black lights. Awesome.

I do have one arcade token and it's for a New England franchise called "Dream Machine". I have been looking

for a Dream Machine sign for over 10 years now for my game room with no luck. :(

 

~telengard

Edited by telengard
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King's Dominion! I used to go there every summer as a kid, my mom would buy season passes for herself, me, and my brother - I think back in the 80s it was a whopping $20 per person! Anyhow, King's Dominion had an incredible arcade, tons of games, I would literally spend several hours in there - one of the few arcades that had Venture. Plus they would cram arcade games everywhere at the height of the craze. It's the only place I ever actually saw a Pot of Gold AKA Leprechaun. Other fantastic arcades I would visit were both in malls: one in Charlottesville, VA and the other in Steubenville, OH. Between those 3 I had an incredible arcade experience as a teenager.

 

I was into collecting arcade tokens a few years ago. I've got over 275 unique tokens, but I know of other people who have massive collections - I just stick to arcades, preferably in the classic period (if I can identify the tokens as such). A lot are kind of average, with a few being very well done or interesting. My favorite is the one from my hometown arcade, Pinball Alley (lower left in the pic), where they actually date stamped their tokens (1982 and 1983) and had the game manufacturers listed on the back. Of course, I like my Atari token, too!

 

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King's Dominion! I used to go there every summer as a kid, my mom would buy season passes for herself, me, and my brother - I think back in the 80s it was a whopping $20 per person! Anyhow, King's Dominion had an incredible arcade, tons of games, I would literally spend several hours in there - one of the few arcades that had Venture. Plus they would cram arcade games everywhere at the height of the craze. It's the only place I ever actually saw a Pot of Gold AKA Leprechaun.

 

Was it the one in VA? Seasons passes were like $40 back then. I do recall seeing Pot of Gold back in the day, probably at KD. I also remember they had Berenstain Bears as well. Both these games stuck out because they were in cabinets about half the size of a normal cabinet I guess because they were for kids.... I played em both anyways! I remember they had a huge arcade at KD, with skee-ball lining one side and a prize center with HUGE stuffed animals and things like Boomboxes. It was like a huge warehouse of games. However, the arcade that had Pot o Gold and the bear game was much smaller, more like maybe one of those like you said they just crammed in. Back then it was worth it for them...The arcades were always packed!!

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Was it the one in VA? Seasons passes were like $40 back then. I do recall seeing Pot of Gold back in the day, probably at KD. I also remember they had Berenstain Bears as well. Both these games stuck out because they were in cabinets about half the size of a normal cabinet I guess because they were for kids.... I played em both anyways! I remember they had a huge arcade at KD, with skee-ball lining one side and a prize center with HUGE stuffed animals and things like Boomboxes. It was like a huge warehouse of games. However, the arcade that had Pot o Gold and the bear game was much smaller, more like maybe one of those like you said they just crammed in. Back then it was worth it for them...The arcades were always packed!!

 

Yes, it was the one outside of Richmond, Virginia. I think my mom had some deal through a church or bank or something so she was able to get the season passes at a discount. That Pot o' Gold was indeed in a mini-cab, and it was not part of the main arcade but tucked away in another section that would take you to the general area where the King Cobra and Land of Dooze/Smurfs train ride was. I remember thinking it was weird that the PoG was in a smaller arcade cabinet, having never seen one before (the next mini-cab I saw was actually a Wizard of Wor that was in my local movie theater, and I saw a few more here and there during the arcade heyday), and overall the game struck me as being very weird. I never saw another PoG after that, but I was really stoked to find the MAME ROM for it all these years later. Still a weird game, but now under the rosy glow of nostalgia.

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