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The Guru Named AITCH
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1790's CONDER TOKENS
Conder tokens, also known as 18th-century provincial tokens, were a form of privately minted token coinage struck and used during the latter part of the 18th century and the early part of the 19th century (1790s-1805) in England, Anglesey and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
The driving force behind the need for token coinage was the shortage of small denomination coins for everyday transactions. However, the demand was fueled by other factors such as the Industrial Revolution, population growth, and the preponderance of counterfeit circulating coins. Because the government made little effort to ameliorate this shortage, private business owners and merchants took matters into their own hands, and the first tokens of this type were issued in 1787 to pay workers at the Parys Mine Company. By 1795, millions of tokens of a few thousand varying designs had been struck and were in common use throughout Great Britain.
Collecting Conder tokens has been popular since shortly after they were first manufactured, resulting in the availability today of many high-grade examples for collectors. The demarcation of what is or is not considered a Conder token is somewhat unclear; however, most collectors consider Conder tokens to include those indexed originally by James Conder or later by Dalton & Hamer.
Is this about coins? I don’t collect coins.
I will save for another day my take on the boredom of today’s collectibles dealers. I travel to quite a few different types of collectibles shows throughout each year and talk to both dealers and collectors at length. Boy, if you want to get into some heated talks, come with me.
In short, I have found a show like the National, one the largest sports card and memorabilia shows in the country, to be filled to the brim with sports cards that have been marketed and played out for decades. I think the dealers have become bored. Walking the convention floors seem more like an exchange these days. Afterall, all it takes is a checkbook to pick up several Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer rookie cards. There are 25,000 of them and more than 300 in PSA 10. And $500,000 to boot. Table after table, it seemed like just a reel of the same cards. However, to my eye, the sands began to shift a few short years ago. A few years ago, it was rare to see many non-sports cards at the show, and now non-sports are fully interlaced within the sports cards, and some dealers are strictly non-sports. It began slowly, but it is solid now. I have noticed a few dealers, exclusive non-sports, with high-grade cards, having their tables swamped the entire show with both spectators and buyers. Many buying their first non-sports.
It is the same story with coins, and along the same timeline.
Walk the FUN Coin Shows and you will see the same inventories over and over. Considering these shows are normally 1500 dealer tables, that’s a lot.
A few years ago, it would have been rare to find a civil war token, a Robbins Medal, a Conder token. If a dealer had any of these, they were relegated to the back of his table in a box. However, nowadays, dealers have really expanded. They still carry predominantly U.S. coinage, but World coins, ancient coins, tokens and medals, have gotten traction. Collectors are asking, what are those? And the clubs, the publications and the Internet have all the information available about them.
And now, back to Conder Tokens.
There is a difference between Conder tokens and just about any other coin. Think about any coin. They are pretty much the same. A bust portrait of a leader, a family crest, a country logo, an event. Nothing controversial.
The universe of about 5,000 Conder tokens contains many controversial pieces. Many.
This was the 1790s. Great Britain and France were in-the-midst of revolutionary atmospheres. France’s king and his cabinet had their heads cut-off and put on spikes outside the government buildings for people to see. Guess who had a hand in the support of the French revolutionaries. Thomas Paine, a founding father of the American revolution. The governments of France and Britain did not care for him. He was a feared man. He wanted equal rights, land ownership, and freedom for all.
Although Great Britain wasn’t overthrown, the British government tried and jailed many revolutionaries, including Paine. I believe that Ben Franklin had, at one point, traveled to Great Britain to free him and bring him back to the U.S.
What these privately minted, and at times anonymously minted tokens displayed were the feelings of the people during the time. Free speech would land you in jail. So these clever little tokens would air many frustrations, while also providing a means of small change so commerce could operate smoothly.
5,000 tokens are too much for me to consider collecting. There are numerous topics that fit back into the boring category, like landscapes, city names, churches and other historic buildings. I’m not saying they are not nice, just not for me.
A subgroup collection of Political tokens and others of odd and different topics would number less than 200. Very doable.
The Kicker
1790’s copper coins and tokens from the U.S. in higher grades today can cost you in the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
While Conder tokens from the 1790’s can be found in mint state and spectacular conditions and normally range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. And the kicker you ask, is that the population for these gems is ridiculously low. Sometimes only 3 to 5 coins have been graded. Are you kidding me? What's the old saying, "like shooting fish in a barrel".
(NGC) Numismatic Guaranty Corp and (PCGS) Professional Coin Grading Service grade these, and I recommend that most collectors buy tokens that they have graded. The assigned grades are always debatable, but they are good at saving you from problem coins that have been cleaned heavily, environmentally degraded or played with to deceive. And guarantee that they are authentic. It takes the guess work out of the game so I can concentrate on the token. I don’t want to become a grading expert.
Here are a few Political Conder tokens to whet your appetite.
There are about 30 varieties of Thomas Paine tokens, with him and/or of him and two other revolutionaries, hanging from a gibbet. Legends usually read “The End of Pain”. Notice they dropped the “e” from the end of his name so as not to get in trouble. Another legend reads “The Wrongs of Man”, referring to Paine’s book “The rights of Man”.
Another favorite variety are Dogs and Cats. The Dogs read “Much Gratitude Brings Servitude”, meaning that you will pay dearly for what you are given. The Cats read “I Among Slaves Enjoy my Freedom”, referring from the inability to train a cat. They are free and do what they want. There are many die-pairings of Dogs and Cats, but among the rarest and most favorite is this one which pair both on one token.
Then there are a several historic figures that are more than interesting, like Lady Godiva riding nude on horseback, Adam & Eve in the garden, several mythical figures, a bit of racism, and a world of animals.
1948 TED WILLIAMS
TED WILLIAMS Never Looked so Good!
Very few of even the die-hard experts have seen this one.
1948, mid-way through the legendary 19-year career of baseball superstar Ted Williams, Nabisco cereal decided that Ted Williams could help them to increase the sales of their cereals.
So, the backs of the Nabisco Shredded Wheat cereal boxes began to display the Ted Williams “Baseball Action” ring. Just send in the coupon from the box along with one box top and .15 cents, and you will be in the game.
This ring gets multiple votes from me. It is one of the most intricate, good looking and coolest rings from within the Toy Premium Ring genre. It does something! It brought a baseball legend to life right on your finger. You don’t just look at it.
That said, it is also one of the most fragile of all the Toy Premium rings and very few (probably less than 50) have survived its nearly 80-year journey to today. Of those 50 I am going to speculate that maybe a dozen or so are intact, working and still in high-grade.
The ring is a gold-colored metal with an anti-tarnish finish. Secured to the ring base with a rivet that pivoted was a plastic batter to resemble Ted. At the base of Ted was a tab, and when you gently used your thumb to pull it back then let it go, Ted would swing his bat in true World Series form, hitting the ball that was held in the air by a thin wire. The side of the ring featured a design of crossed bats and ball in raised relief below an engraved Ted Wiliams autograph.
The problem with the ring was too many things could go wrong. The small plastic “Ted” figure was easily snapped off the base as soon as a kid sat down if he/she had it in their pocket. And the action was accomplished using a spring. We all know how that goes. You can never fix a spring that has sprung. So often the spring is missing, twisted, or over stretched and the mechanism no longer works. Also, the thin wire that held the ball was often mercilessly bent, and the ball was easily lost. Lastly, the gold-colored luster on the base easily wore off, from the dirt and sweat of being held.
Problems aside, if you can find one, it will surely become a favorite within your baseball collection. It has all the bells and whistles.
The 1995 Overstreet Toy Ring Price Guide has near mint examples at $900. Hard to say what today brings. I have seen both higher and lower. The main point is if you see one, GET IT!
So, You Want to be a SUPERMAN
As shown in a previous post, the Supermen of America Member Prize ring is the rarest and most desirable of all Superman rarities. And with only about 15-20 of them known to still exist, I am asked what the next Best would be. Well, you have come to the right place my friends.
As we progress through the hierarchy of Superman artifacts, it all begins at the beginning. Don't look so confused.
Take a breath and feast your eyes on this one.
Here is the 1941 SUPERMAN GUM RING. Five gum wrappers and .20 cents got you one of these. A substantial goldish brassy metal with a removable top to expose the secret chamber. The iconic image original image of SUPERMAN breaking chains around his chest and the letter "S" for SUPERMAN is the feature atop this ring that will let everyone know who you are. And you can't be a SUPERMAN if you don't have one of these. It just can't happen.
The Overstreet Toy Ring Price Guide valued a near mint example of the SUPERMEN of AMERICA - MEMBER Contest prize ring at $120,000 in 1995, and this ring came in second at $50,000.
The only problem today is there are approximately just 9 examples of this ring known to exist. And this one is a Beauty.
Enjoy the view!
1940 SUPERMAN
SUPERMAN
The Lore of the Contest Prize Ring
A scattered forward and back look into Toy Premium Rings
The release of the first Overstreet Premium Ring Price guide was in 1995. Yes, by the same Robert Overstreet who became the guru and author of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guides. I knew Bob Overstreet at that time. He was a soft spoken and kind man who would focus on his passions and jump into the deep end. His Overstreet Comic book guides were the linchpin to serious comic book collecting. His annual Overstreet comic book price guides became the bible and encyclopedia to the comic book market. They remain held in high regard, and have become collectible themselves, with older editions becoming worth hundreds of dollars. In addition to comic books, he was expert in several other genres, including Indian arrowheads and fossils. He also took to toy rings and felt that these small gems were not understood, and that a large enough and coherent effort had not yet been put forth to organize them, and to understand their importance within Americana. But he intended to change that. His hope was to bring annual Toy Ring Price guides mirroring the template that he had created for comic books. He made three editions (1995-1997), but the public interest wasn’t yet large enough to continue with the expense of producing the books. I was a contributor to all three books. I had a particular focus on certain rings then, so I would find great rings for Bob’s collection, that I personally was not interested in at the time.
There were the earliest collectors of premiums (circa 1980s) who felt the same – Little Jimmy Dempsey, Harry Matetsky, Tom Tumbusch, Ted Hake, Ed Pragler, and Jack Melcher, to name a few. This was all pre-Internet so the bringing together of the massive amount of data never really happened. Everyone was scattered. Little Jimmy Dempsey and Tom Tumbusch put forward great efforts with their publications, but distribution was small. The 1995 release of the Overstreet Premium Ring Price Guide was the first large attempt to expose toy rings as a serious collectible, and to bring in new collectors. There was a lot of “buzz”. The push was to create excitement and to educate collectors about premium rings. The niche Toy Ring Journal also began then to offer deeper insight into various rings.
As expected, what people wanted to know most, as with most all collectibles, was what was the rarest and most valuable ring.
From the start and never looking back, it was the 1940 Superman Prize ring. With an upcoming contest announced in Action Comics #3 in December of 1939, a short-lived (one month) promotion would begin to attract members to the Superman Club. Members could enter the Supermen of America Club contest to win prizes, including cash and either the Prize ring or a Superman patch. To enter, members had to write a short letter (100 words or less) what they would do with Superman’s powers.
It has also separately been alleged, but not documented, that Superman Gum also offered the club ring by sending in five Superman gum wrappers and .10 cents.
The Overstreet Toy Ring Price guide had a 1995 value of $120,000 for the Supermen of America Member Prize ring in near mint condition. That got a lot of attention.
Some evidence suggests that there were possibly as many as 2,000 Prize rings created, but it is not known if production ever reached that figure. As we stand here in 2024, some 60 years since collectors began looking for these rings, the best guesstimates for the number of Prize ring survivors are between 15 and 25, mostly in mid grades.
WHAT’S A PREMIUM?
A question often asked by people is what is a Premium? A Premium is an item that is offered only by purchasing a product, which may have the actual premium inside or attached to it, or by the product having a coupon or proof of purchase ticket attached to it. The coupon could be mailed in for redemption of the item and it would be shipped to them. The key is that the items were unique in that they could not be store bought. They were only available for a very short period through the purchase of a product. Premiums were creative, fun and highly desirable for kids, but they were not durable. They were meant to be played with and used. Hence, they were easily broken, which explains why so few have survived, especially in high grade.
The idea of premium rings began in the 1930’s. A thought I have about the first generation of toy rings was that the 1930s-1940s depressionary economic environment in the United States made available many out of work creative artists, engineers and people of imagination. It was primarily a time before everything cheap and low cost was made of plastic. Although fragile they were intricately made of metal with great designs with much thought and creativity. Companies wanted top notch items to draw the attention of children who would then push their parents into buying the cereal or accompanying product so their child to obtain the promoted premium.
I have collected these rings for about 35 years and know a fair amount about them. Like other collectibles, many that were once thought scarce and rare, are no longer because of the Internet. But being around the marketplace for premium rings, both pre and post Internet, one does get a sense of what has truly emerged as rare, and most importantly, desirable.
The Guinness Book of Records has a collector of toy rings with over 20,000 rings. My head explodes thinking about that. My first collection of toy rings grew to about 2,500 rings. At that point I decided to sell them as they became more of a task for me to manage than to simply enjoy. I began buying a ring just because I didn’t have it, not for the original thought about how cool it was, or whether it was really important, interesting, and special. That is not a good way to collect.
But now, after many years and much thought about how to really bring in collectors to this great collectible genre, I believe that narrowing the focus to what I call “The Greatest Toy and Premium Rings”, makes this a more doable, less administrative and more enjoyable past time. Personally, I believe that a world-class ring collection might be between 100 and 200 rings. Mostly vintage (1930’s-1960’s).
New debate has sprung about which rings should be included on the list of the top 100 or 200 rings? Should it always be the rarest or most popular characters? That certainly needs some debate. Popularity seems to be what keeps the franchises alive. Superman and Batman are both alive and strong 85 years after their birth because movies, TV shows and comic books continue to be produced that feature them. Characters like Tom Mix, Orphan Annie, Captain Midnight, and others, which were household names in their day have faded from the fore. But while the faded characters are little known to younger people of today there still seems a need for some representation of them. However, like most collectible genres, if the franchise of a character does fade out, you then only have the older folks who remember them, collecting them, and when they die, so does the market. The hierarchy will be an evolution onto itself, and collectors will decide.
I have decided to focus on mostly vintage, mostly metal and functional rings. Rings that do something. There are many great rings that display strictly a picture, a badge or insignia, but a ring that functions (i.e., Ted Williams swinging a bat, an Atomic Bomb ring with removable back fin that reveals an atomic reaction, an embossing ring, decoder, compass, whistle, stamper and others that let you interact with it, are just the coolest and best of all, in my opinion.
Valuations must begin somewhere before they can evolve.
Enthusiasts always want to know what is the rarest and most valuable. It’s just a natural question. Somehow the most valuable and desirable of a genre sets the high bar and the rest follow down from there. Many things about collecting toy rings have been argued about over the last 40 years, but no one has disputed that the Superman rings have always been considered the key to a great collection. One of my valuation considerations is that in 1995, Overstreet valued the Supermen of America Contest Prize ring graded in fine condition, comparable to a grade of comic book grade of 5.5 to 6.5 at $40,000, and one graded very fine, comparable to a comic book grade of 7.5 to 8.5 at $80,000. At the same time, comparable graded Superman #1 comic books might have been bought in the range of $20,000 to $30,000. These comics today are valued between $2 million to $6 million in their best grades (5.00 to 8.00), and there are 75 or more examples known to exist in all grades. I believe the correlation between comic book and toy premium ring values will need to be revisited.
There is no precision here, but rounding to lower levels, to be fair, the Action Comics #1 and Superman #1 comic books in Fine grade today could be valued at $2 million or more versus the average of about $25,000 in 1995, 80 times increase. If applied to the Supermen of America Contest Prize ring average 1995 price then of $60,000, we see $4,800,000. I am not suggesting that is to be the value. Not yet at least.
But when considering the inputs. Both the comic books and the rings are extremely rare, and neither should still exist, as they were throw-away items. Neither was meant to save. Books were made to read and throw away. Rings were meant to wear and wear out. There are approximately 75 copies of the Superman #1 comic book and 20 examples of the Prize ring. That’s it. Both are from the first appearances of Superman and the ring was the first premium associated with him, and a cool one at that. The image of an iconic Superman breaking chains is incused within the metal emblem on the front with the words “Supermen of America Member”. And the contest story is compelling. A contest entrant had to write in 100 words or less what they would do with Superman’s powers to win a prize. That was quite a bit more effort than just sending in a coupon, box top and a dime or 20 cents. Then, to repeat, there are only about 20 rings still known to exist today.
I must acknowledge and consider that there are more comic book collectors presently than ring collectors, but even if each Action Comics #1 and/or Superman #1 comic book owners wanted one of the rings to really assemble the total package and make their Superman collection even extra special, that might amount to 200 to 300 collectors. But there are only 20 rings.
From its 1990s heydays, the Superman Prize ring has fallen dramatically in price. Maybe it’s because no one could find them. Or when one did come up for sale at auction (only about 5 or so) in nearly 20 years, they were relegated to the more obscure parts of a sale.
So, if we just go back to the 1995 values, and consider that the number of rings is only about 10 percent of the number of Superman #1 and Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman) comic books combined, I believe the upside potential will be strong. The problem is finding one.
My arguments may warrant a pause or even some laughter but remember that the 1995 value for a Superman #1 comic book in 1995 was about $25,000, and it’s now $2 million to $6 million.
The only thing we know for certain is nothing except Truth, Justice and the American Way.
THE NEXT "BIG" THING
THE NEXT BIG THING!
My father taught me that predicting it was pure luck, as no one can determine what the public will go for. Logic and analytics don’t work when it comes to what the Next Big Thing will be.
So, for today’s lesson, come and sit around.
Card collecting has been very popular among the broad public since the late 1800’s. And clearly Sports Cards have been dominant during most of that time. However, there have been many Non-Sports Cards throughout the same time that attracted many collectors.
Throughout, collectors and the smaller group of dealers loyally espoused that Non-Sports Cards would rise and challenge Sports Cards. Well, it never happened. While the Non-Sports Card collectors remained and continued to collect, the mainstream and their dealers stayed primarily with Sports.
UNTIL NOW it seems.
Not long ago, it would have been rare to find a Non-Spots Card in a dealer’s case at the National Convention. And if you did, it was maybe one or two cards. There just because the dealer wanted to get rid of it.
Just back from the National and clearly Non-Sports Cards have grown up quite a bit. There were quite a few dealers, even those with their primary Sports Cards dominant, that had inventory of many, many different Non-Sports titles.
When interviewing some of the dealers throughout the show, the attitude and the dialogue was the same. Sports Cards have reached a ceiling. Prices are high and their populations might not really justify it. There are about 25,000 Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer rookie cards that have been graded by PSA, which about 320 have been graded as 10’s with values in the mid six figures. That’s impressive. Yeah. Sports cards are cool, but...
But then I look at Mars Attacks, one of the most popular Non-Sports sets. The #1 card has a total population of approximately 400 cards, no 10’s, one 9, and eighteen 8’s, and the value of an 8 is maybe $20,000. Hmmm. Okay, maybe Mars Attacks doesn’t have the draw as sports.
But then I saw my friend at the National. One of the best known and knowledgeable Card collectors, both Sports and Non-Sports. You must be careful with him. When you ask him a question, you had better listen to the answer. I had bought a Non-Sports card and wanted to tell him and show it to him, but I feared that the lecture I would receive would cut me to my knees. Was I ready for that? Well, I was excited and had to show him. What did you get? he asked me.
I got a 1940 A&M Wix Cinema Cavalcade Tobacco card #169 of the Wizard of Oz PSA 8. The first depiction of the Wizard of Oz in a trading card. The Wizard of Oz rookie card.
Within this daunting set of 250 different cinema related cards there were just two Wizard of Oz cards. Card #169, a small T-206 sized card, which depicted Dorothy, Toto, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man. The whole crew. And card #168, a regular size trading card depicting Dorothy, Tin man, and Scarecrow. My sense was that Wizard of Oz was global. Everyone has watched it. Everyone knows it. And most importantly, its longevity is continuing with the likes of the theatrical productions of Wicked, and now the movie to follow. My eyes popped when I looked at the populations. The #168 had only 23 total cards graded by PSA. No 10’s, 2 nines, five 8’s. The #169 had only 22 total cards graded by PSA. No tens, No nines, 3 eights, 3 sevens.
Don’t let me lose you but this sidebar is important.
DON’T CONFUSE RARITY WITH POPULAR INTEREST
There are many other movies, TV shows, radio programs, comic books, cartoons and more that are or were popular at some point. But most fade away. Take “Gone with the Wind”. A classic that people cite, but few people today can give you details, tell you who was in it, what it was about, etc. Only that it was a classic film.
Superman and Batman make my point more easily. Created in 1939, both have continued generationally. Movies, comic books, cartoons, TV shows and more. All these efforts have perpetuated their popularity, and kids and adults today both continue to love them and want to see them, therefore want to collect them.
I believe that Wizard of Oz is in the same category.