Newswise — Exonumia describes numismatic items (such as game tokens) that have value but are not actual legal tender.
Like many kids growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s, Michael Zalot’s summer visits to New Jersey amusement parks included the collection and use of Exonumia in the form of arcade redemption tokens. The brightly colored coins of varying sizes—stamped with logos, images and gaming symbols—once found in the local arcades of Wildwood, Point Pleasant, Atlantic City, Seaside Heights and at other parks coast to coast are now largely a reminder of summers gone by.
Now a business professor at Cedar Crest College, Dr. Zalot’s research looks at the significance of the vanishing arcade redemption token. He seeks to better understand how the role they played in arcade and amusement-park economies from the mid-20th Century to the early 2000s and he works to preserve their place in American leisure-business history. His scholarly article "The Vanishing Arcade Redemption Token: Intermediate Digitization and Commercialization of Local Gaming Exonumia" appears online in the peer-reviewed Atlantic Journal of Communication and is slated to be published in the print edition of the journal.
“I explore and document the historic use of the aluminum and brass gaming ephemera,” Zalot explains, “and I study the shift from local amusement establishment micro-economies to immersion in commercialized media properties and the calls for historical preservation of these material pop-cultural artifacts.”
Once wildly popular and collectible, these gaming tokens have been phased out in recent decades in favor of digital redemption systems and scanned redemption tickets. “Today, they are likely to be found in the back of a junk drawer, in a landfill, or as nostalgia items for sale on eBay,” says Zalot, who has digital photos of the classic tokens which he has gathered over the years from his native New Jersey and from all over the country. “They represented a micro-economy of exchange, a local definition of value set by the arcade owner and accepted by the player, who may have been more interested in the gameplay experience than in winning the spider rings, Styrofoam gliders, superballs, and other typical nominal prizes available,” Zalot says.
Now pieces of Americana sought by Exonumia collectors, these tokens depict themes of leisure, patriotism, nautical adventure, profit and entertainment, and typically display a sense of place. “Classic arcade redemption tokens not only served as a medium of exchange but also represented a particular location and relationship with an establishment,” he says. “They were linked to the ideal of windfall through gaming, often referencing gambling casinos as well as the branding of the local establishment,” he says.
For the most part, classic metal redemption tokens have largely been replaced with newer plastic chips and prize cards. “Location-specific symbols have been replaced with images from popular copyrighted national media properties,” Zalot says.
Right now the Cedar Crest College professor has collected more than 300 unique specimens and many duplicates that are cataloged in a database that he has recently begun photographing. “I am continuing the work by starting a token catalog and collector's guide based on the collection that I've put together,” he says.
RSS