The images above are obverse and reverse of a cancelled Abraham LincolnCracker Jack token found while metal detecting, also known as to those involved in the hobby. The hole was punched as a way to cancel the token before sending it back to the owner. The third image is of a pristine example of the same token, uncancelled.

Just about everyone at one time or other has eaten a box ofCracker Jacks and eagerly looked inside for the prize thatwas included. The company that was to become CrackerJack was started up by the Rueckheim brothers, immigrants fromGermany. They were not the first to introduce a molasses coveredpopcorn snack but were the first to develop a way to keep thekernels from sticking to the other kernels in the box. They firstintroduced their snack to the public at the 1893 Chicago World'sFair. The snack was quite popular with the fairgoers which encouraged the brothers to market their product to the general public. In1896 the product was registered along with their slogan, . Toy prizes were first put intothe boxes in 1912 and consisted mainly of baseball cards and toyswhich were mostly rings, plastic figurines and stickers. Sailor Jackand his dog Bingo were introduced in 1916 and became a registered trademark in 1919. In 1922 the company officially changedthe name to . Until 1937 most of the prizes weremade in Japan but deteriorating relations with that country andeventually the war brought change to where the prizes were made.During World War II all prizes were made of paper because metalwas needed for the war effort.

In 1933 the Cracker Jack Company launched a promotioncalled the . Instead of the usual toysurprise, an aluminum token bearing the portrait of one of the U.S.presidents was included, starting with Washington and ending withFDR (Roosevelt) who was president at the time. Each token listedsome general information about the President on the token alongwith his portrait. To become a member of the Mystery Club youhad to send in TEN tokens and in return would receive a certificateproclaiming you as a member of the club along with a small giftand your ten tokens. To avoid having the tokens redeemed asecond time they were either marked, or had a holepunched in them.

Soon after the program was introduced, the number oftokens required for membership was reduced to THREE and thenshortly after that the tokens needed were increased to FIVE. Thepromotion was discontinued in 1936. The Borden Companybought Cracker Jack in 1964 after beating out the Frito-Lay company in a bidding war. In 1997 Frito-Lay bought the company fromBorden and in 2016 stopped putting a prize inside the box.

While some people derive pleasure studying the variouscoins they obtain for their specific collections, I get pleasuresearching for whatever the earth may give up to my metal detector.It could be a coin, a piece of jewelry or a long forgotten token suchas the piece described. The enjoyment derived comes from theresearch performed to establish the story behind the object found.

For more information on the New England Numismatic Association, see:
https://www.nenacoin.org/