Railwaymodeler Posted June 3, 2012 Report Share Posted June 3, 2012 Going through a bunch of stuff I have, I found a CTA token holder, fairly new and made of a geasy-style plastic (That kind that would not take well to most plastic compatible glues!). While it does not need any glue anyway, it did have one CTA token, about the size of a dime, with an older top-left, bottom right diagonal CTA style logo in the center. Middle ring is divided into sixths, and filled in every other sector (much like a nuclear symbol). Outer ring reads Chicago Transit (on top) and *Authority* on bottom. The holder says TransIt CHICAGO (Capitalized as written here) in the center, using a serif font, and under that, the later CTA logo, in the sans-serif lower case font, with those "speed" lines to the left of cta. The holder holds ten tokens, and on the back (Oppostie the TransIt logo) it says "Pop Coin UK", and near the keychain mount, says MAN. UK., so this is from Britain, apparently. When did CTA offer these keychain token holders. A Google search turns up nothing on this, but I did find the CTA was accepting tokens into the late 1990s. Any info, anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 3, 2012 Report Share Posted June 3, 2012 I can't talk regarding the holder. About tokens, I can talk about 20 years earlier. At that time, most were procured from Currency Exchanges, since even after they imposed their surcharge, the roll of tokens was still cheaper than the equivalent number of fares. While tokens became a handling expense CTA didn't need once it went to mag stripe cards, they live on at the CTA store. Also, in the 70s, there were two sizes of tokens, to differentiate between them after a fare increase. IIRC (and maybe I don't), when the fare went up from 45 cents to 50 cents, the smaller tokens were distributed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago13 Posted June 3, 2012 Report Share Posted June 3, 2012 I can't talk regarding the holder. About tokens, I can talk about 20 years earlier. At that time, most were procured from Currency Exchanges, since even after they imposed their surcharge, the roll of tokens was still cheaper than the equivalent number of fares. While tokens became a handling expense CTA didn't need once it went to mag stripe cards, they live on at the CTA store. Also, in the 70s, there were two sizes of tokens, to differentiate between them after a fare increase. IIRC (and maybe I don't), when the fare went up from 45 cents to 50 cents, the smaller tokens were distributed. My dad worked for EL back in the 70's and would get me a roll of tokens to use on the bus when I was going to Schurz High Scool. If I remember correctly, the two different sized tokens had to do with one being the full fare token (the dime sized ones if I remember right) and half fare being a larger sized one. Students could ride at half fare back then provided they could produce a valid CTA student card. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRCTA Posted June 7, 2012 Report Share Posted June 7, 2012 You can find them on EBay! I sure would like to have some! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 7, 2012 Report Share Posted June 7, 2012 You can find them on EBay! I sure would like to have some! There are some tokens here on eBay. Didn't see the holder, though. You probably want to bid on a corn flake that looks like Jay Leno, though. :o Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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