Collecting Canning House Tokens
Most of the collectors of canning house tokens started out as coin collectors. During our quest for filling the next empty spot in the always present Whitman album, we found that the cost of that coin was prohibitive to our budget. It was at the monthly meeting of our local club and the subsequent auction that I first encountered canning house tokens. An elderly gentleman put a 2 x 2 manila envelope with 7 tokens in it on the board. I had never seen anything like them and inquired of the gentleman what they were. He informed me that they were the same as money to the workers in the various canning houses. These were some of the oldest of the tokens and were used for picking peaches in the Linkwood, Md. area. I won them in the auction for the princely sum of $1.75. That began a 35 year search for that next token. Coin dealers held them in such low esteem that frequently they just put them in a junk box and anything in it could be had for a quarter. As any collector knows, acquiring something new is thrilling, whether it is an expensive coin or a cheap token.
At the time I began, there were only about 5 canning house token collectors on the Shore and we were all from different counties. In the early days, almost everybody had a large amount of a few tokens. A swap with another collector usually entailed him showing you his doubles and you offering your doubles to him. There was never any price discussed and when we each had what we wanted from the other collector’s stash, we agreed that it was a good trade and each went our own way.
Lee Burton was working in Baltimore at the time and attending the larger coin shows. He had the opportunity to acquire some early tokens fromBaltimore at prices far more reasonable than coins. He also picked up some oyster shucking tokens. These are “go-withs” to canning house tokens because a lot of the businesses that handled tomatoes in the summer used them for oyster shucking in the winter. Since there were over a thousand canneries on the Eastern Shore over the years and about 250 at the peak of the industry, there are a lot of tokens to look for. Mr. Burton’s book has been the bible for Eastern Shore cannery token collectors. He covered many a mile compiling all the information contained in that book. The original run of 1,500 copies was reduced by 200 lost in a fire at the publisher’s. The remaining copies have become an expensive collectible in their own right.
Tokens have taken on a life of their own, with prices reflecting this. Even a common token found in an antique shop is so overpriced from what I remember in the early days of collecting canning house tokens. I still get fired up about a new acquisition even though I haven’t found a new one in three years. Collecting tokens is the same as collecting coins except for the fact that I could never get a coin of any great rarity because of the price. I have several tokens that are the only ones known and that is what it is all about.
The Maryland book doesn’t cover the Eastern Shore canneries very well, but the supplements that have come out recently list almost all the canneries not covered in the original book.
There are also brass tokens that were used instead of paper chits by more affluent growers for paying the pickers in the fields. These go nicely in any canning house token collection.
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