What Is The Market Like For Communion Tokens?

I am a longtime communion token collector, with about 600 in my collection. The market for them is small. I have corresponded with the major auction houses and dealers of communion tokens worldwide, and the consensus is that there are fewer than 50 or so serious collectors in the world.

As in most numismatic fields, our number is likely to shrink as collectors age (I am 64). Until about two or three years ago, most ebay sales of communion tokens topped out at less than $25 each. There were, of course, exceptions, mostly for very early (17th century), rare (all U.S. issues are rare), and other desirable (heart-shaped tokens, for example) tokens. And then what one ebay seller told me was a new bidder/collector entered the scene and tokens suddenly were bid up to more than $100 routinely. Some sleuthing has indicated that bidder is an east coast collector with a history of pricier collections.

I hope this is helpful.

Thanks for your input, CTs4me. I wonder if that east coast collector is the same one who bid 100+ for the second of two of these Caledonia tokens that I have (er... make that had.)

How do I define "serious?'

Truthfully, I can't. That's the term I used when I reached out to auction houses and dealers. Here are some quotes from responses I received and some of my interpretations based on other responses.

There are more one-time buyers/bidders of single CTs than repeat buyers/bidders or buyers/bidders of multiple CTs.

There are "fewer than 75 and likely fewer than 50 collectors worldwide" with collections "larger than a couple hundred pieces, let's say."

"In my career as a dealer, I don't think I've sold tokens to more than a couple dozen different buyers."

Many (again, a term I can't define) collectors limit their collections to a single community (Glasgow, for example), region (Lanarkshire or the Orkneys) or country (Australia, Canada, etc.)

Some collectors are keenly (maybe, exclusively) interested in provenance. They buy only ex-Norweb of ex-Burzinski tokens, for instance. Does this mean they're serious? Or really serious? I don't know.

In my personal experience buying/bidding on ebay in the last dozen years or so (until recently, as described in an earlier post), most tokens were won with bids of less than $20 and fewer than half a dozen bids.

The three or four online blogs I've found dedicated to CTs have had fewer than a dozen participants. And two of those blogs have been abandoned (Is that the right term?) for years now.

I'm happy to respond to any more questions and would be thrilled to hear others' thoughts.

I know of no online resources. Lester Burzinski's "Communion Tokens of the World" is the standard reference guide. It was self-published in 1999, with a printing of only 250 copies. They seldom come up for sale and typically fetch $250 or more. He lists just over 7,700 tokens and pictures around 3,000 of them, I think.

The standard for U.S. issues is authored by Autence Bason, and the Canadian standard is the Charlton Guide. There are also guides exclusively for Scottish, Australian and Irish issues. The Irish guide (which I do not have) doesn't appear for sale often; it usually runs close to $75. The others are generally available and cost less than $25.

There are several other, older references, too, as well as several lengthy papers on the subject published decades ago by the Society of Scottish Antiquities (I think that's what it's called).

I'd be happy to help identify what I can if you want to publish photos here or send them via email. The Burzinski book is catalogued alphabetically by the text which appears on the token, so just a description including size and shape will work, too.

The Manly Library at the ANA has most, if not all the listed references. It's a great resource.

Hope this is helpful.