The New England Numismatic Association's official publication is NENA News. John Ferreri offered to share some articles with E-Sylum readers; thanks! Here's a token article that caught my eye - it's from the June 2019 issue. Written by Ed Brozynza, it's about the Cracker Jack Mystery Club tokens.
-Editor
The images above are obverse and reverse of a cancelled Abraham Lincoln
Cracker Jack token found while metal detecting, also known as coin shooting to those involved in the hobby. The hole was punched as a way to cancel the token before sending it back to the owner. The third image is of a pristine example of the same token, uncancelled.
Just about everyone at one time or other has eaten a box of
Cracker Jacks and eagerly looked inside for the prize that
was included. The company that was to become Cracker
Jack was started up by the Rueckheim brothers, immigrants from
Germany. They were not the first to introduce a molasses covered
popcorn snack but were the first to develop a way to keep the
kernels from sticking to the other kernels in the box. They first
introduced their snack to the public at the 1893 Chicago World's
Fair. The snack was quite popular with the fairgoers which encouraged the brothers to market their product to the general public. In
1896 the product was registered along with their slogan, The
More You eat, The More You Want . Toy prizes were first put into
the boxes in 1912 and consisted mainly of baseball cards and toys
which were mostly rings, plastic figurines and stickers. Sailor Jack
and his dog Bingo were introduced in 1916 and became a registered trademark in 1919. In 1922 the company officially changed
the name to Cracker Jack . Until 1937 most of the prizes were
made in Japan but deteriorating relations with that country and
eventually the war brought change to where the prizes were made.
During World War II all prizes were made of paper because metal
was needed for the war effort.
In 1933 the Cracker Jack Company launched a promotion
called the Cracker Jack Mystery Club . Instead of the usual toy
surprise, an aluminum token bearing the portrait of one of the U.S.
presidents was included, starting with Washington and ending with
FDR (Roosevelt) who was president at the time. Each token listed
some general information about the President on the token along
with his portrait. To become a member of the Mystery Club you
had to send in TEN tokens and in return would receive a certificate
proclaiming you as a member of the club along with a small gift
and your ten tokens. To avoid having the tokens redeemed a
second time they were either marked, cancelled or had a hole
punched in them.
Soon after the program was introduced, the number of
tokens required for membership was reduced to THREE and then
shortly after that the tokens needed were increased to FIVE. The
promotion was discontinued in 1936. The Borden Company
bought Cracker Jack in 1964 after beating out the Frito-Lay company in a bidding war. In 1997 Frito-Lay bought the company from
Borden and in 2016 stopped putting a prize inside the box.
While some people derive pleasure studying the various
coins they obtain for their specific collections, I get pleasure
searching for whatever the earth may give up to my metal detector.
It could be a coin, a piece of jewelry or a long forgotten token such
as the piece described. The enjoyment derived comes from the
research performed to establish the story behind the object found.
For more information on the New England Numismatic Association, see:
https://www.nenacoin.org/
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor
at this address: whomren@gmail.com
To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum
Copyright © 1998 - 2021 The Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS)
All Rights Reserved.
NBS Home Page
Contact the NBS webmaster
|