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 Replies: 12 / Views: 7,056 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4883 Posts |
Found today in the bargain bin. Regarding the grooves - I'm supposing the coin slot was correspondingly configured so only these could be inserted? Perhaps someone who's familiar with the pay phones in Italy back in this period can advise.... See: http://users.pullman.com/fjstevens/...e/index.html  Colligo ergo sum
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4911 Posts |
my mother grew up in Italy and I found one of these, she said she recalled using them to call my great grandmother in Germany. ill ask her later assuming no one can shed some light
Feel free to call me Will.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1391 Posts |
Yes, the groves made it so only a certain type of token could be inserted into the device. The reason these were used is so that the telephones didn't have to have their change slots re-keyed every time inflation forced the government to issue new coins. It also helped when a company had phones in two different countries, as was the case in Europe. People do collect these by dates and mint marks. When complete it is a sizable collection. I think these are from Series 3 (?), I will have to check.
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Pillar of the Community
3772 Posts |
Yes, the slots on the pay phones where so that those tokens fitted.
By an odd coincidence the showers in the largest public indoor bath in my home-town (not in Italy) had to be operated by tokens as well. Since the Italian telephone tokens fitted and were cheaper, people bought bunches of them when on holiday in Italy.
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
17878 Posts |
In the early 1980s I worked as a tour manager accompanying tourists on bus tours of Europe, and I well remember buying these tokens from tobacconists' kiosks and pumping them into the payphones! I seem to remember that the tokens doubled in price from 100 to 200 Lire at one time, which caught me completely unawares! You needed 15 or 20 tokens for a short call to the UK. I have saved one in my collection!
There was also a general shortage of small change in Italy at that time, and any shop would happily accept telephone tokens in lieu of coins - and you would sometimes get them in change!
Edited by NumisRob
02/18/2015 04:42 am
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1118 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
New Zealand
526 Posts |
Old topic, but I picked up 2 of these today
6706 = June 1967
6806 = June 1968
Some have mint-marks but these do not.
If you find a symbol above "GETTONE" it is the mintmark, which consists of 2-3 letters in a recessed shape.
4 mintmarks were used, and some dates are known with multiple mintmarks, as well as many dates lacking a mintmark.
Edited by Bas S Warwick
05/05/2018 02:13 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3079 Posts |
I will add that they have beverage machine that use gettone tokens, and France had there own version of the tokens with slot/s in them and there are a couple of mints in the USA that make grooved tokens also if you what.   French ph9ne token  Notice the date on the obverse  From the Rogers Williams mint USA arcade type   Edited by Circus
05/05/2018 7:37 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
717 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3079 Posts |
The RWM is Roger Williams Mint and an arcade token. Here are a couple more   32mm,brass  reverse slot is in the mirror location 30mm plated   28mm plated arcade token Fun Factory Edited by Circus
05/26/2018 2:48 pm
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
82 Posts |
 This is an Italian telephone that used these tokens. (It is a rather poor picture taken in the Milan Museum). You put tokens in the slot on top of the phone. The slot has the bumps to match the slots on the tokens. Once the call was over you could get your excess tokens back by hanging up and pressing the button with the red arrow pointing to it. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
82 Posts |
And this is the slot on the top of the phone.  |
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Moderator
 United States
187446 Posts |
Excellent photos!  |
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Replies: 12 / Views: 7,056 |
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Posted 02/17/2015 5:30 pm
