What? Collect “play money?” Not me! My coin collection has only legal currencies, not play money. Play money is not legal.
But look at this gambling shilling from 1792. Is your collection worthy of a piece like this? What a beauty!
CoinQuest thanks Baldwin’s for releasing image copyright to us. This gambling shilling is made of silver and shows a JS monogram for a guy named S Fiuri who ran a gambling house in London starting in 1792. The piece sold for $460 US dollars during a 2013 auction. It was executed by J. Milton, who worked for the Royal Mint at the time. Here is the description from the auction catalog.
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Baldwin's Auctions Ltd > Auction 81 Auction date: 10 May 2013
Lot number: 3572
Price realized: 300 GBP (Approx. 461 USD / 355 EUR / 441 CHF)
COMMEMORATIVE MEDALS. MEDALS BY SUBJECT. Gambling, S Fiuri, Silver Shilling Token, by J Milton, SF monogram, 1 MAY 1792 – XII, rev ace of spades within crowned Garter and wreath, 22mm (DW 311/31; M-Guest 148/1188). Mint state, lightly toned.
S Fiuri's gaming house was opened in Bury Street, St Mary Axe (London), 1 May 1792.
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Not all “play money” holds lofty status like S Fiuri’s beautiful shilling, but there are many other intriguing candidates for coin collectors, nevertheless. You will see a few examples here.
Exonumia - In addition to coins, tokens and medals are avidly collected around the world. These fall under the general heading exonumia because they lie outside (exo) the strict limits of numismatics, which comprises legal tender coins only.
You can get a good feel for the scope of the exonumia hobby by considering the mighty TokenCatalog.com web site. Today, there are 622,911 individual tokens listed on the site, with descriptions, and most with pictures. The blue-on-green screenshot below shows the categories of the Token Catalog. You will have to go the site, scroll down, and click on “Exploder Tokens” to find out what they are (worth the click).
Note “Play Money” is one of the categories in the Token Catalog. There are 673 individual entries in this category, so you’ve got plenty of options to choose from if you decide to collect.
How to Find and Collect Play Money - As always, you are free to craft your own collecting strategy for Play Money. You can collect by date, by metallic composition, by subject matter, or by country of origin. We will show you various examples of Play Money and you can decide if and how you want to collect.
Of course, eBay is always a good place to find anything numismatic, including exonumia and related items. In addition, Token Catalog has ongoing auctions to buy and sell exonumia. Also, there is an interesting antique gaming materials site at gamesetal.shop. Finally, the folks at ABC Tokens and Mal’s Tokens educated us a lot while we were developing the CoinQuest web site:
The approach we like best is to collect Play Money by country of origin. For instance …
Great Britain Spade Guinea - Up until the early 1800s, there have been beautiful gold coins in the UK known as guineas. The one in our picture comes from the time of King George III and it sold at auction for $1000 US dollars (image courtesy of Fritz Rudolf Kuenker). Now, there are also Play Money versions of the old guineas called “Spade Guineas,” and these are made of brass and generally sell in the neighborhood of $25. They were used as chips in various card games and board games. There are many interesting varieties with different portraits of King George and different inscriptions. Why not add one to your collection? At least they don’t cost $1000!
Jetons - Now, here’s an idea for those starting out with Play Money: go to eBay and search for “jeton.” You will find a myriad of interesting items from around the world, some with very striking and very artistic patterns. Jeton is another word for token, and you will find, for example, old-time gaming tokens from France, modern spiritual tokens from India, and Mardi Gras “doubloons” from the United States. Most of these pieces are available at very low prices, although early French jetons in good condition with great eye appeal can easily reach $100.
German Spielgeld - “Spiel” means “game” in German, and spielgeld (don’t confuse it with other special tokens called notgeld) is money for playing games. Hundreds of patterns exist, and many of them originated in Nuremberg, Germany.
The Krauwinckel family of Nuremberg struck many beautiful tokens over the period of their lifetimes in the late renaissance period, 1543 to 1635. These pieces are jetons known as “Rechenmunze,” or “counting coins,” implying that they were used in place of valuable coins to assist in accounting.
They were struck by:
Hans Krauwinckel I (from 1562 to 1586)
Damian Krauwinckel, Hans' brother (from 1543 to 1581)
Hans Krauwinckel II, Hans' son (from 1586 to 1635)
More modern pieces use elegant and alluring artwork to capture pre-euro German denominations, marks and pfennigs.
Further Reading