Note: This post is not paywalled. Enjoy! — Paul
I was recently researching an obscure topic and stumbled across something interesting in my Google search results: a website called TokenCatalog.com, which attempts to document the seemingly limitless world of tokens.
Nowadays, of course, the term “token” often refers to the digital world — crypto tokens, AI tokens, security tokens, that sort of thing. But TokenCatalog.com is about physical tokens — coin-like items that can be used in lieu of cash. Some are issued by private businesses (a “Good for One Drink” chit at a local bar, or scrip to be used at the company store), others by governmental agencies (subway tokens). TokenCatalog.com claims to have photos of over 600,000 of them.
I’d never much thought about tokens as collectibles until I came across the TokenCatalog.com site, but a quick check of eBay revealed that token collecting is definitely a thing. I wanted to know more, so I contacted the site’s founder, Richard Greever, and asked if I could interview him. Here’s the transcript of a Zoom call we recently had, edited for length and clarity.
Inconspicuous Consumption: Please tell me a little bit about yourself. How old are you, where do you live, and what do you do for a living?
Richard Greever: I’m 68 years old. I’m currently back in California, although I lived in Hawaii for the past 15 years or so. And I’m retired from a career as a software engineer — embedded systems, telecommunication systems for corporate systems, working on their software.
IC: Do you collect anything besides tokens?
Greever: Not really. I collected coins as a kid, sort of lost interest in that over the years, and then started picking that up again. But then prices of everything went crazy and around 2000 or so, so my wife said, “You should try tokens. They’re cheap.”
IC: So that’s when you got bitten by the token bug, so to speak?
Greever: Yeah. I bought a bunch of them from Fred Holabird, this well-known Western Americana dealer in Nevada. He had an auction and I said to him, “Can I buy all the unsold lots?” So I got about 150 tokens from Oregon. I knew nothing about them and they were all different. It was cool.
IC: So you started out with 150 tokens. How many do you have now?
Greever: Probably 10,000.
IC: Whoa! So your wife really didn’t know what she was getting into there, right?
Greever: Yeah, she’s scratching her head like, “That wasn’t what was supposed to happen.”
IC: Well, at least it’s 10,000 of something that’s fairly small. Speaking of which, how do you have them arranged or displayed or stored?
Greever: They’re not really displayed except for on the website. The bulk of them are Oregon state tokens, because of that first group of them I got. That’s how I collected coins as a kid — you fill up the penny book until you’ve filled in every hole. It took a long time for me to figure out that with tokens, you can’t fill in every hole. You’re never finished. There are always new ones turning up, being found.
I still focus on specific areas. I do Oregon, I do Hawaii trade tokens, and I did Santa Clara County in California. And I used to have a collection of California saloon tokens, but I sold that a bunch of years ago. Anyway, that’s how I sort of organize things — by where they’re from, by town and by state.
IC: Do you have them in drawers?
Greever: Mostly in boxes, in 2x2 flips organized in boxes at home, a couple hundred pieces stacked on top of each other. And some are in binders.
IC: Obviously, I realized there are people who collect things like coins and stamps, but I was not really familiar with the idea of collecting tokens until I stumbled across your website. And I was like, “Oooh, this is a whole niche I hadn’t been aware of!” Is there a particularly large or robust community of token collectors out there?
Greever: It’s a struggling hobby, I guess is what I would say. There’s a National Token Collectors Association. Around 2000, they had 500 members; I think they’re down to 300 now. And there’s the Token and Medal Society, which spans tokens and larger commemorative pieces. There’s also Numista — they do something similar to our website, but it’s not organized the same way. I think the population is just aging. I’m frustrated by how many notices I get about people who’ve passed away every year.
IC: In the same way that you specialize in certain areas of origin, like Oregon or Hawaii or whatever it might be, I assume there are lots of other subcategories that a collector might specialize in, like tokens from a particular business or industry, or tokens made of a certain material, or whatever, yes? Looking at your website, the number of potential sub-niches seems almost limitless.
Greever: Yeah, there are definitely people who collect only transportation tokens, only car wash tokens, only saloon tokens. As far as materials, a lot of people won’t have anything to do with plastic tokens.
IC: But that opens up a possibility for the people who like plastic tokens!
Greever: Yeah, there are people who specialize in them. Yeah. And there are people who collect wooden nickels.
IC: When did you launch the website?
Greever: I think it was 2006. I’d been collecting for a number of years, and I was frustrated because I couldn’t find any information about the tokens I had. Like, what is this design? How many were made? Here’s one that has a big hole in the center — were they all that way, or was that a mistake?
So I created the website and started cataloging my collection as I acquired more tokens and adding whatever information I could about them.
IC: I like that you call it TokenCatalog. I actually collect catalogs, among other things, so that appeals to me. But we could also say it’s a database or a digital archive, right?
Greever: Yeah. I bristle a little bit about calling it a database. I mean, that’s what it is, it’s true, but lot of the old-time token collectors just sort of dismissed it when they heard that term. Like, “It’s just a spreadsheet, it’s not of interest.” So I try to avoid that term, even though it is truly a database.
IC: So your goal was to create the most comprehensive token library, database, catalog, whatever you want to call it, as possible?
Greever: My goal was to create a tool that would enable that to happen. When I started working on the website, I had several thousand Oregon tokens — I was just buying everything Oregon. And then I thought, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if I entered all mine and you entered all yours and everybody entered all of theirs, then there would be this massive database. You’d see all different wear, different varieties.
Greever [continued]: And then, after spending a year of entering tokens onto the database as pretty much a full-time job, I realized nobody else in their right mind will ever do this. So it was never my intent to be the one to catalog everything. It was more to make a tool so others could do the same thing I was trying to do. And then what gets displayed to the public is a union of everything that’s been put in.
IC: You just said no one else in their right mind would do this, but lots of people actually have done it. It has become a crowdsourced project, so to speak, right?
Greever: Yeah. There are definitely people who help research stuff on the site. There are certain personalities that I think are addicted to what I created — and I’m one of them! I mean, I’m on the site every day, playing around. What I’m trying to do is just find more information about what’s already there. Ideally, I’d like to know who made every token, who the vendor was and when.
IC: You said you founded the site in 2006, so this is your 20th-anniversary year. Are you happy with how it’s evolved?
Greever: Yes. There are some things I wish were better — better documentation, for one thing — but I’m mostly happy with it. One thing I’ve had in the back of my mind is, who can take this over?
IC: I was going to ask if you about that. I mean, you’re 68, you’ve got plenty of years ahead of you, but I was wondering if you had a succession plan or a protégé or something like that.
Greever: Not specifically. I’ve reached out to several people who could do it. They just don’t have the time, the bandwidth, that kind of thing. I’ve approached the Token and Medal Society, and there’s some interest there, but it’s unclear whether they have the right skill set.
IC: Your homepage says the site currently has over 600,000 images of tokens. I assume many of those were taken by site contributors, not by you..?
Greever: Yes.
IC: Let’s say you see a token on eBay that you’ve never encountered before, so you want to add it to the website. But for whatever reason — whether because of the price or the condition or whatever — you don’t want to buy it; you just want to document it. Would you take the photo from the eBay listing and add it to your website?
Greever: Yes, but I request permission from the eBay seller. When I first started out, we were freely taking images off of eBay — like, it’s out there, it’s public, we figured there’d be no problem. But it just takes one person to complain. And so we had to remove about 2,000 images.
IC: So now you ask the seller. Has anyone ever said no?
Greever: Out of about 2,000 people, maybe 10 have said no.
IC: Let’s talk a bit about tokens in general. Is there an accepted definition in the hobby of what does or doesn’t qualify as a token?
Greever: I don’t really have a strict definition. There are too many weird edges and exceptions. There’s some things I can tell you aren’t tokens — a medal commemorating George Washington’s presidency is not a token, that’s a medal.
IC: Is there any category that’s controversial, where some people would say, “Oh, yeah, that’s a token,” and other people would say, “That’s not a token.”
Greever: I’m sure there are. I don’t look at it that way.
IC: Are there some designers or manufacturers that are known for producing particularly attractive or sought-after tokens?
Greever: Not specifically. There are Civil War tokens, but that gets back further [in time] than I’m usually interested in. They’re considered tokens. Some of them are pretty.
IC: And what were those used for? A Civil War token for what?
Greever: They were replacing currency. Small change was short during the Civil War, so they minted copper. Businesses had copper tokens made with their name on it and would accept them as a penny. The whole town would accept them as a penny. A lot of tokens arise that way.
IC: What about casino chips? Are they considered tokens?
Greever: They are not.
IC: Even though you can cash them in?
Greever: They’re their own category. Most people who collect trade tokens and stuff won’t have anything to do with casino chips.
IC: A lot of the token categories on your site had me scratching my head a bit. What, for example, is a coal token?
Greever: So coal companies, lumber companies, they had workers that shopped at the company store, ate at the company canteen, got paid in company scrip. And you couldn’t really use them when you went to town, so you didn’t go to town.
IC: What about exploder tokens?
Greever: Those are tokens that were used during mining to control access to explosives. So they’re good for a four sticks of dynamite, or a plastic cap, that kind of thing. Only authorized people would be carrying those. Like, you’re going to go set off some explosives in a mine to make it deeper. And then you get the specific tokens you need for the necessary amount of dynamite. That way, nobody had access to, say, 16 sticks of dynamite when they only needed four.
IC: Obviously, we currently live in an increasingly digital age, which I gather is bad for tokens. As a New Yorker, I’m of course familiar with subway tokens [which were phased out in the 1990s], and I know bars use drink tokens, and I suppose I’ve seen laundromats where the washing machines take tokens. What else are tokens currently used for in modern contemporary life?
Greever: Amusement tokens, like at an arcade. Not a whole lot else.
IC: Getting back to your collection, do you have any personal white whales, so to speak? Tokens you’ve been trying to track down for many years?
Greever: Not specifically, just partly because I’ve evolved from the wanting to fill every hole.
IC: What’s the most you ever spent on a token?
Greever: Probably $800. Maybe once I spent a thousand dollars. But 10 to 20 bucks is more typical.
IC: What do your friends and family think of this passion of yours?
Greever: My wife thinks it keeps me mostly out of trouble. My family thinks it’s this weird thing that I do — they don’t quite get it. Most people don’t. I’ve taken a pocket full of tokens to parties and been like, “This is what I collect and do.” And people will look and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” But they don’t really get it.
And there you have it. Big thanks to Richard for introducing me to this collecting niche, and for sharing his story with us.
Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. He also writes Uni Watch, which is sort of like Inconspicuous Consumption for sports. You can contact him here.
I've always liked the origin story of subway tokens once I understood it. Previously NYC subway fares had been 5 cents and then 10 cents, with turnstiles operating on nickels then dimes. When fares went up to 15 cents, it turned out that it was much easier to effectively mint your own 15-cent coins than it would hve been to invent a turnstile that would handle more than a single coin per transaction.