THE WORTHINGTON TEXAS TOKEN COLLECTION

We are pleased to offer the R.B. Worthington Collection of Texas Tokens. R.B. Worthington was the father of R.D. Worthington, the author of the first pamphlet listing of New Mexico trade tokens (1987). This massive collection of about 2000 pieces, will take a number of sales throughout 2018. The Collection will be offered by taking small parts spread out through the collection for each sale, which allows for the offering of both very rare small towns and more common pieces. Some tokens are put into small groups, especially multiple denominations of the same merchant piece.

Many of the older collectors knew the Worthingtons. My own introduction to him came through my friend John Schilling, the then head of the Nevada Bureau of Mines. Schilling was the initial cataloger of Nevada trade tokens, and had an extensive collection that we sold more than twenty years ago. John introduced me to Dick, as well as to Christine and Jack Harkey in New Mexico, who had put together a massive New Mexico Collection, which we sold about 15 years ago.

The Harkeys traded regularly with Worthington. He got all their Texas token, and then the New Mexico. Schilling got the Nevada. The Harkeys spent many hours telling me about their vending machine business in New Mexico and parts of Texas, which they operated approximately c1939-1965 (this is a pure guess- too many years have passed). They pulled out the trade tokens from the machines, and had a heck of a volume of them. I was told many stories of the fun trading between them and Dick, as well as John. They also collected pennies from the machines, amassing one of the largest hoards of Lincoln cents ever known. They had rolls of everything - including 1909-S VDBs - in footlockers full dating up to about 1945. Years later, Christine was interviewed for an article in Coin World.

Worthington’s book on new Mexico Tokens is now a rarity. It was succeeded by Schilling’s book, then another by Kaiser.

The listing of Texas Tokens was first done through a series of several long pieces in TAMS Journal circa 1979-1984. Subsequently, our friend Jerry Adams edited a massive private volume on Texas Tokens. Today, Richard Greever heads up the TokenCatalog.com site listing all USA trade tokens. Collectors offer additions to Mr. Greever all the time, and in my own case, Mr. Greever is welcome to any photos or information we publish.

Many of the tokens from the Worthington Collection are unlisted in the initial TAMS volumes, but may be present in the Adams compilation or the Greever online reference. We have tried to note any disparities. There are a large number of Ingle System tokens in the Worthington Collection. If we have not seen that the town is verified, we have done so with Dave Schenkman, who has a copy of the Ingle database. In this light, there are now a number of discoveries that will come out here.

For more information, or to bid, see:
http://bid.holabirdamericana.com/auctionlist.aspx

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