Token fever: Local man’s collection goes back 30 years

By John Grant Emeigh of The Montana Standard - 11/19/2007

Ralph Merry flips through one of his books of antique bar tokens in Maloney’s bar in Uptown Butte recently. The tokens were once used in place of coins around the turn-of-the-19th century. Lisa Kunkel / The Montana Standard

There was a time long ago when thirsty saloon dwellers would trade tokens for stiff shots of whiskey, fat cigars and frothy glasses of beer.

Though they are no longer used today, people like Ralph Merry still like to take their tokens to their favorite watering hole if only to trade them for more tokens.

Collecting trade tokens, also known as exonumia, is an enthusiastic hobby among some Montanans.

Trade tokens were commonly used in place of regular money in exchange of goods and service all around the U.S. in the 1800s and early 1900s. They were commonly used in the “old west,” because the U.S. government didn’t mint enough coins in those days.

“Change was in short supply then, so merchants just made their own money,” Merry said.

Saloons and stores in the early days would make their own personalized tokens made out of common metals and had a value from two cents up to a dollar. The tokens are historically significant to collectors, because they often have the names of saloons and stores that no longer exist.

Merry said he especially values tokens that were made in Butte and the surrounding areas.

“What better place to collect them than in Butte, when they had over 400 bars at one time,” he said.

Merry said it was his mother, Eleanor, who lives in Dillon, who got him started in collecting trade tokens. He’s been collecting them for about 30 years, and has about 1,000 different tokens.

His most cherished token dates back to about 1889. The token was issued by the Vienna Brewery for saloons in Butte and Walkerville.

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Continued from Page A1 they include the name of the state and city or town.

“I have some tokens that have towns on them that don’t even exist on maps anymore,” Merry said.

One of his favorite tokens comes from a saloon in the now-extinct Lion City, a mining town about 12 miles west of Melrose.

The token don’t often carry a high monetary value, according to Merry. He says regular token can run between $15 and $25, while the rarer ones can be valued at over $150 a piece.

Merry calls it a “poor man’s” coin collecting hobby.

“You don’t have to have several hundreds in your pocket to collect tokens, and it’s far more interesting than coin collecting,” Merry said.

Most token collectors find new tokens at trading shows or on-line. However, Merry said some of the best tokens are found in dump sites, because they had no value once people stopped using them and they were often just thrown away in mass.

Roy Rubick, formerly of Butte, but now of Idaho Falls, has been working on a reference manuel for Montana tokens. He occasionally returns to Butte and other cities in Montana to meet with collectors like Merry to do further research on his book. Rubick said he has catalogued almost 7,000 different tokens from Montana, and he hopes his self-published book will be completed soon.

Rubick said some of the most popular Montana tokens were ones produced before statehood. He noted one token from Montana’s territorial days sold for $2,000 on eBay recently.

The hobby of collecting tokens is becoming more popular, according to Rubick. He believes this is because tokens are rarely used anymore, and they have such a strong connection with the history of city or town.

“It’s not something you can go down to Wal-Mart and buy,” Rubick said.

Merry and his fellow token enthusiasts can sometimes be found at Maloney’s bar in Uptown Butte showing off their collections at the bar. They’ll admire them, buy them and, sometimes, trade them, while they pay for their drinks with boring coins.

— Reporter John Grant Emeigh may be reached via e-mail at john.emeigh@lee.net or by telephone, 496-5511.