u/ijumpup

As a reminder I bought 80 pounds of mixed tokens searching for arcade / amusement token brands I’m missing from my cectoken.com collection.

I’ve bought from this person before and knew there were a bunch of these religious guardian angel tokens mixed in. I asked them to pick these out for me but instead they lowered the price to push the sorting to me. Turns out they made up 27 of the 80 pounds which was a bit more than I expected. I’ve got these listed for $25 per 5 pound lot and am hoping someone swoops through and buys them all since these will likely make or break whether I break even.

I also picked out 11 pounds of generic eagle / no cash value tokens. I listed two lots of these for $25 / 5lbs and actually sold them overnight ($40 after eBay fees)!

So current break down/recovery:

- 27 lbs guardian angel
- 11 lbs generic eagle no cash value
- handful of counterfeit quarters, dimes, and nickels
- 42 lbs to be updated on next post

Recovered $40.25 / $285

For context, I collect amusement tokens from brands like Chuck E. Cheese, Showbiz Pizza, and 100 or so others. I bought 80 pounds of mixed tokens hunting for rare ones for my collection and these coins were in the mix. The lot I bought was a small slice that came from NYC MTA's auction of 13,435 pounds of non-US coins back in 2017. The person who bought them originally was in it for the much more valuable foreign coins. From my quick research, the MTA used to run annual auctions for these up through 2006 when they stopped and spent a decade accumulating them. So the batch I'm buying from comes from people accidentally tossing in things that aren't valid US coins to pay for bridge tolls, buses, and parking meters.

Chuck E. Cheese token for scale.

For context, the tokens I bought were a small slice that came from NYC MTA's auction of 13,435 pounds of foreign coins and slugs back in 2017. The person who bought them originally was in it for the much more valuable foreign coins. From my quick research, the MTA used to run annual auctions for these up through 2006 when they stopped and spent a decade accumulating them. So the batch I'm buying from comes from people accidentally tossing in things that aren't valid US coins to pay for bridge tolls, buses, and parking meters.

There was one authentic quarter in the bunch though so my current recovery is $0.25 / $285 spent.

Hello again from the Chuck E. Cheese token guy! I actually collect more than just Chuck E. Cheese tokens. There are 82 brands currently listed on my site cectoken.com. Usually I buy bulk lots of just one brand but I decided to switch it up and buy a big bulk mixed lot. I’m hoping that I can pull out the token brands I collect and break down the rest into smaller batches I can sell to break even (you know 100 hours of work fun in exchange for a handful of tokens for my collection)!

I plan to keep you all posted on my results: types of tokens, how many of the batch are brands I collect, how many are generic, any interesting ones, and whether I break even!

Spent: $285

Anyone else collect arcade tokens? I collect all of the tokens listed on cectoken.com and have accumulated a bunch of other brands in the process.

I collect a subset of amusement tokens listed on cectoken.com but have accumulated a decent amount of “other” tokens from buying mixed lots. Open to trading for tokens I do collect!

Thought you all may enjoy these! I doubt any are particularly valuable but it's a cool mix since he collected them over several decades. He had them categorized by european (first four), mexican/south american (next four), africa/asia (next two), england/germany (next two), and canadian (last two).

He said I can do what I want with them so I'll obviously be turning these into Chuck E. Cheese tokens through the power of online marketplaces.

Got these from a grandparent. I'm a bit of an expert in the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens but I have no idea about foreign coins. Just looking for direction value if any of the pics are worth over $50 collectively.

Chico Cheese was a short run Brazilian knock off of Chuck E. Cheese

Critter McCoons I believe was based in Spokane WA

DZ is the most recent vintage of discovery zones tokens.

Montereys toy token from Monterey Tex-Mex Cafe based in Texas and acquired by Showbiz pizza

Paul E. Parrott’s was another short lived Chuck E. Cheese knock off based in Phoenix AZ

Peter Piper Pizza tokens are quite common but this specific token with the Spanish text is from a South American / Mexican location (can’t remember where)

Billy Bob’s Pizza Circus from Georgia. For some reason the 1 coupon is hard to find

Hannah Banana is a UK based location

Another Peter Piper token but this one is unique because of the generic eagle on the back

Billy Bob pizza theatre plastic tokens are from the Australia location

Goldbacks are a top-down attempt at a parallel currency. Design the note, deposit the gold, then go convince merchants and legislatures to accept it. Tokens went the other direction. They were already circulating, physically in the hands of millions of Americans, spent and saved and pocketed and forgotten, long before anyone thought of them as an asset. Goldbacks are trying to manufacture the distribution that tokens already have. That’s the thesis. Adoption is the hard part, and tokens skipped it.

Brand recognition is already universal. Nobody needs to be told what a Chuck E. Cheese token is. The mouse is one of the most recognized characters in American childhood and the token is its most tangible artifact. A Goldback requires explanation at every transaction: what it is, why it’s worth something, how to verify the gold. A token requires none of that. Recognition is the scarcest input in monetary adoption and tokens have it for free.

Distribution is already complete. Goldbacks are concentrated in a handful of states with a thin merchant network. Tokens are everywhere. There’s a genuinely national float sitting in junk drawers and jewelry boxes and old coat pockets in every state in the country. The holder base is enormous even though most of those people don’t think of themselves as holders. That’s a starting position Goldbacks can’t buy.

The city-name series beats the state series. Goldbacks issue in state series as a deliberate collectible structure. The 1980s CEC tokens already did this by accident, with city-marked strikes tied to specific locations and quantities set by local operations instead of a marketing plan. That produces real, uneven, undocumented scarcity. A token from a short-lived location in a small market is rare in a way a first-run state Goldback isn’t, because the Goldback mintage was planned and known. Geographic identity plus unplanned mintage is the numismatic ideal and the 80s city tokens have both.

No issuer, no permission. Goldbacks depend on a company that mints them and states willing to bless them. The value sits downstream of institutional cooperation. Tokens have no issuer at all anymore. Nobody can print more, nobody can debase them, no legislature has to approve anything, no company controls the supply. It’s a bearer instrument with a hard cap enforced by corporate abandonment rather than by policy. If you’re skeptical of permissioned money, that’s the more honest version of the idea: a currency that exists entirely outside anyone’s authority to expand or restrict.

Supply direction favors tokens. Goldbacks are minted continuously and the float grows with demand. Token supply is fixed and shrinking, since the card conversion sent inventory to scrap instead of to collectors. Fixed and falling beats fixed and rising.

The honest counterweight: two things have to hold for this to work. Tokens have no floor, so unlike a Goldback there’s nothing underneath if sentiment turns. Brass melt value is close to nothing. And the redemption network is gone. The card system ended acceptance and no adoption story brings back a merchant network that doesn’t exist. Any future acceptance would rest entirely on collector consensus rather than utility.

So the real bet comes down to this. Goldbacks are wagering that a new currency can earn recognition. Tokens are wagering that existing recognition can become currency. The second is a shorter distance to travel, but it’s the one nobody has capital behind, and thin markets built on sentiment move hard in both directions.

Pic #1: 14,286 tokens (about 1 jug worth) I’ve searched through to pick out the rares and bagged in preparation for a future where the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens are properly respected

Pic #2: 4,251 tokens I’ve searched through and will bag once the jug is filled

Pic #3: A small box of \~3,000 unsearched tokens

Pic #4: My organizer trays for tokens I have a bunch of duplicates of

Pic #5: My proprietary triple baggy system to organize tokens I only have a few duplicates of

Pic #6: The largest binder I could find on the internet that currently holds 298 different Chuck E. Cheese tokens (out of 401 known to exist) and a 213 unique tokens from related brands like Showbiz Pizza

You can see pics of all of the tokens in my binder on my site [cectoken.com](http://cectoken.com)

I am satisfied with both. Gets yours: https://www.legboot.com/product/thent-theos-thick-coins/

Pic #1: 14,286 tokens (about 1 jug worth) I’ve searched through and bagged in preparation for a future where the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens are properly respected

Pic #2: 4,251 tokens I’ve searched through and will bag once the jug is filled

Pic #3: A small box of ~3,000 unsearched tokens

Pic #4: My organizer trays for tokens I have a bunch of duplicates of

Pic #5: My proprietary triple baggy system to organize tokens I only have a few duplicates of

Pic #6: The largest binder I could find on the internet that currently holds 298 different Chuck E. Cheese tokens (out of 401 known to exist) and a 213 unique tokens from related brands like Showbiz Pizza

You can see pics of all of the tokens in my binder on my site cectoken.com

Pic #1: 14,286 tokens (about 1 jug worth) I’ve searched through and bagged in preparation for a future where the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens are properly respected
Pic #2: 4,251 tokens I’ve searched through and will bag once the jug is filled
Pic #3: A small box of ~3,000 unsearched tokens
Pic #4: My organizer trays for tokens I have a bunch of duplicates of and sell as singles on eBay
Pic #5: My proprietary triple baggy system to organize tokens I only have a few duplicates of
Pic #6: The largest binder I could find on the internet that currently holds 298 different Chuck E. Cheese tokens (out of 401 known to exist) and a 213 unique tokens from related brands like Showbiz Pizza

You can see pics of all of the tokens in my binder on my site cectoken.com

One of my hobbies is buying Chuck E. Cheese tokens in bulk and searching for rare tokens! There a growing sub of token collectors r/cectokenscollector and a website that catalogs and has value estimates for each: cectoken.com