Many, many photos of old arcade game tokens

Exonumia galore. More than 300 close-up photos of custom arcade tokens. None have cash value; each once bought a few minutes' time in another world. To what game does this grant admittance?

Link (Thanks, Sean Hannan)

Reader comment: tamarindpup says,

I don't think the Department of Defense token is in fact a gaming token. It's very common in the armed forces for various directorates, ships, bases or other units to give out coin-like tokens as souvenirs. These are given to VIPs, not so VIPs, and other visitors. Many military contractors do the same thing. The idea is to commemorate the visit with something that's unmistakably trivial in value. This DoD one might have the issuing group's name on the other side.

Nick Gamroth says,

Here's the nearly interesting story behind those armed forces coins (at least why the Air Force has them). Back in the old days, and maybe still today, pilots would carry around a single bullet to use in the event that they went down in enemy territory or were near-fatally injured and wouldn't make it back.

So then this ended up being a sort of bar game where these pilots would challenge each other to see if the other one had his bullet.

So, one takes out a bullet at a bar and taps it on the bar (the challenge). If the other one has his bullet on him, he takes it out and taps it on the bar. In this case, the challenger has to buy drinks. If the second pilot doesn't have his bullet, he has to buy drinks for everybody. So somehow it changed into coins instead of bullets.

Matthew Smith says,

If you look at the comments on that picture, you can see the flip side of the coin. Also, the coins given out by different military organizations are generally much larger and thicker, as well as more ornate than the coin listed there. Many military bases still have video games machines on them,
and I'm sure during the video arcade craze, they probably had even more than they have now.

Rupert says:

In the latest BB posting, you say of arcade tokens: "None have cash value; each once bought a few minutes' time in another world."

The same could be said of communion tokens, which were handed out in Scotland between the 17th and 19th century to parishioners judged worthy of taking part in Holy Communion. You presented these at the church, and in return got your soul properly salved. The idea spread with the Scots to all parts of the world. Link to pix.

Heath Miller says:

I use to work for The US Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command (SBCCOM) in the environmental office making sure that as our guys got rid of chemical weapons, everything was on the up and up. So what did I do to merit the reward of receiving a coin? I moved furniture in the building. Some new VIP guy was coming in and needed an office, so I and another guy were pulled out of our office and moved a large (and quite heavy) desk into his new space. We were appreciative of the coin and the gesture behind it, until we realized that years of saving the Command's ass had gone unnoticed and the fact that because of the soon-to-be reorganization (hence I no long work there) they were really only trying to dump the coins as fast as the could.