Home Metal Detecting

Ugly, but have you ever seen one?

Aluminum token from Escondido Creamery, good for one quart of milk. I found this token with a detector in an old high school yard in Oceanside California. The only thing I've found on the creamery is a 1915 photo. Anyway, here's some pics:

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Comments

  • Neat token!
    Please enter it in the August "Quality" award nomination thread
    here.

    This might shed some light on your token.

    Or maybe that is something you've already seen.

    Tokens are cool finds. I've find a local milk token good for one pint.

    BTW-image


    Analog Rules! Knobs and Switches are cool!
    imageimage
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Sadly, those old aluminum tokens often don't do so well in the ground. Many of them were fairly early, though. Around the turn of the last century, aluminum was harder to produce and was considered more of a "quality" metal, rather than the "junk" metal it is today.

    Despite the poor condition, it's an interesting find. I've found three different early aluminum tokens over the years.

    Explore collections of lordmarcovan on CollecOnline, management, safe-keeping, sharing and valuation solution for art piece and collectibles.
  • Yea...I have found a few here too, the poor things do not fair too well .....Nice finds though.
  • By 1920 the Escondido Creamery merged with another and changed names.

    http://home.earthlink.net/~rrtrussell/chapter07/Creamery.html

    Escondido means hidden in spanish.

    Cool token can't wait to see it cleaned up.
  • Yep, that's the photo I was talking about. Looks like it dates between 1915 - 1920 based on the other post, thanks for the research.
  • my california tokens book only lists a "pint" token. the pint token would be worth around $16. i'm guessing the quart may be worth more. "navel jelly" cleans alluminum very well. just make sure you wear gloves, as it is highly corrosive.
  • Holy moly, you mean this thing is even listed somewhere? I thought for sure this was an orphan piece. Thanks for the info! Nope, Mary, I'm not from Maine, I was doing some work in Wiscassett and did some digging in my spare time. That was a great park. I'll go and turn the Pm feature on, thanks.
  • if you have been lucky enough to find a few tokens from CA, then look for "california tokens" , by charles v. kappen.
    i own the first printed edition signed by charles. a newer version has come out since then i think. the book has just about every town and city existing or not in the state. i have dug maybe 100 hundred tokens from CA and have found this book to be quite helpfull.
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