WHY A $1.20 TOKEN?

A Juneau Billiard Co. $1.20 token (B-32c) recentlysold on eBay for the opening bid of $495. The question is: Why a $1.20 token?

Ron Benice reported to us that Kern Wilson ofUtqiagvik (Barrow) reports on token sales on eBayfor the National Token Collectors Association, andboldly stated that the $1.20 denomination indicatedthat it was for bottle deposits - 24 bottles at 5¢ each.But what would a billiard company be doing redeeming bottles? This started a few emails flying.

J.D. Williams suggested that we contact KayeDethridge as he owned a bottling company in Juneau.Further, J.D. reminisced that as a boy in Juneau inthe 1950s finding six Coca-Cola bottles in a singleday (=30¢). "That may not sound like much, but backin those days I could buy a double decker hard packedice cream cone from Garnick's Grocery in Juneaufor five cents."

Kaye Dethridge chimed in: "I've always figured thatthe $1.20 denomination was pretty strange. The deposit thing sure sounds plausible, though I wasn'tinvolved in that end of it so don't have personalknowledge of it. I did buy Card's bottling company(October 1, 1958) and bottled pop there for severalyears. We re-named the business Totem BeverageCo. And, yes, we did bottle the pop in stubby brownbeer bottles. Every Friday morning I would make therounds of the bars, picking up the bottles, which theysaved for me. We paid the bars 15¢ a case for them.Does anyone know why the NAT&T had a $1.10denomination token? That might give us some moreinsight."

Sadly, the $1.10 token from the NAT&T Co. is awhole different story (see [below]).

But what does a billiard company do with a $1.20token? Kern Wilson might have just hit the nail onthe head.

If you look on line at tokencatalog.com, and search$1.20 tokens, you find a lot (mostly from Minnesota!)that actually state that they were for bottle deposits.Legends are sometimes simple:

"Good for $1.20 with case"

to specific:

"Good for $1.20 upon return of one Hamm case& bottles"

to way too much information:

"Due the bearer, the sum of $1.20 upon the return of this check together with one empty two dozen quart case with bottles in good and serviceable condition."

Before looking at the Library of Congress newspapers, I did not realize the connection between theJuneau Liquor Company and the Juneau BilliardCompany. It seems likely to me that when JLC wasin the liquor business, they had to deal with emptybottles. This function probably was inherited by theJBC, but "soft drink" bottles.

While we can never really know why the $1.20 token was issued, this seems like a reasonable explanation.

Now, about the $1.10 NAT&T token...

AND WHAT ABOUT THAT $1.10 TOKEN?

Theory 1: from Ron BeniceIn my research, after reading A.B. McCullough's"Money and Exchange in Canada to 1900" I proposedthe following in the April 1997 issue of ATC&PN:

Editor's comment: Keeping accounts based upon theBritish Pound, to which the Canadian Dollar wastied, seems a bit awkward. However, there would bean advantage to receiving silver dollars and American gold in payments if that is what your creditorswere requiring.

Theory 2: from Tony Chibbaro, South Carolina token researcher. The only other $1.10 tokens ontokencatalog.com (other than drink tokens) are fromSouth Carolina.

The only way that I can think of to account for theodd denomination of these tokens is to offer a discount to an employee, and in doing so making surethat your employee is not being profited upon byshopping at the store of the company that he workedfor. (SC tokens compliments of Tony Chibbaro).

Editor's comment: Tuxbury and Awensdaw Mercantile (both $1.10 tokens) were the company stores ofTuxbury Lumber Co. Company stores have a reputation of exploiting the workers. Perhaps Tuxburywas an exception!

Theory 3: from your editor

If you tendered cash, and were willing to accept tokens in change, rather than a $1 token, you wouldreceive a $1.10 token. This allowed the merchant toconserve his cash, and gave the customer a bonus.Tokens tendered received tokens in change.

Editor's Conclusion: Theory 1 would work for bankers, but I don't see it applying to general commerceon the retail level. Theory 2 makes sense, allowing aworker a 10% bonus, perhaps for accepting tokensas his salary. In the North where cash was always inshort supply, giving the customer a bonus for accepting tokens rather than cash would be good businesspractice.

Dave writes:

Dave adds: