OPA red & blue point war tokens
MKW94
....Can someone relate to me the story and meaning of these tokens?
I have red & blue "One Point's", with various letters in the middle.
HC, VH, XT, HH, ect..
I know they were used during the war. Do they come in other denominations
besides " 1 " ? What do the very small letters stand for? In what years
were they made?
Thanks!!
Brad Swain
>Would you know of a reference book that I could look at in order to find
>out which of the letter combinations are scarce?
I have been told previously by another reader here that the MM goes for
about $5 and the MV for about $50. The others are common.
Brad Swain
Joseph Porto
>There are some 50-60 letter combinations, one or two of which are
fairly
>rare. As far as I know there never was a satisfactory explanation of
the
>letters, other than for internal accounting. The red and blue tokens
were
>used as "change" with paper food ration coupons. The reds were used for
>meat and the blue for canned goods. They were made from about 1942 to
>1945, but none of them are dated.
Would you know of a reference book that I could look at in order to find
out which of the letter combinations are scarce? Would the new book that
just came out on WWII coinage and currency cover these tokens?
-
ALEX PORTO FDN...@prodigy.com por...@firnvx.firn.edu
ANA LM4661 FUN 13663 NI 2475
"Computers are useless. They only give us the answers."
- Pablo Picasso
AnswerMan2
Here's my entire OPA token file:
N-759 N-2533 Q: Letter combinations on WW II ration tokens?
54 two letter combinations, 24 on blue, 30 on red. Scarcest is the MV red,
only about 100 known. There are 24 blues, with WC and WH the hardest to
find.
NUMSB-JUN44
C-838 Q: My grandfather used to tell a story about problems with those
little round OPA tokens
being used in vending machines during World War II. Were they a serious
problem?
The vending machine industry hated them with a passion, as did the bus
lines. The pieces would
jam the machines or fair boxes, and each time a repair man had to open it
up to remove the jam.
In some of the cruder vending machines they would actually work as a dime.
C-618 Q: I have a red OPA token from World War II rationing, which has
been struck off center.
Any idea of value?
By chance I have an ad for several similar pieces which gives an idea of
retail values. Your
piece is probably worth around $5 to $7.50.
N-5030 Q: You have mentioned the red and blue OPA tokens in several
questions recently. What
were they actually used for in the rationing sustem?
During World War II, the OPA tokens were used for various products or
edibles. The system
was put into effect on February 27, 1944. The red tokens were used for
meat and fats, and the
blue tokens were required to buy canned foods and other processed foods.
The blue tokens
actually were used only for part of 1944.
NUMSB-APR44
N-5002 Q: I have an OPA red ration token which is much thinner than nomal,
and appears to
have been painted on one side. Was this some special form of these
pieces?
Sorry, but you have an altered piece. Not too long after they were issued,
sharpies discovered
that by splitting the pieces in two and applying a red dye, paint or even
lipstick, the two halves
could be used to purchase twice as much. Counterfeiting of the paper
ration coupons was
rampant, so its not surprising that the fiber tokens were involved too.
N-4714 Q: I have found a small red (blue) token which has "OPA" on it. Can
you tell me what it
is?
This question is coming in in increasing numbers. Back during World War II
the Office of Price
Administration (OPA) issued the red and blue tokens as part of the
rationing system then in
effect. The pieces carry two letter codes, with some of the combinations
quite common and some
quite rare. Values for most of them are not very high, but they still are
collectible.
N-4184 Q: Is it true that the old OPA tokens wound up being used in Europe
after World War II?
The ration tokens, which were used in the U.S. during the war, became
surplus when the war and
rationing ended, and the remainder were sold to Yugoslavia, where they
were used in Displaced
Person camps.
N-6075 Q: Do you have any statistics on the manufacture of the red and
blue ration tokens used
during World War II?
Whatever happened to all those tokens? The government originally ordered
two billion of them,
1.1 billion of the red, used for meats and fats, and 900 million of the
blue tokens which were
good for processed foods. The initial plan was to make them the size of a
quarter, but because
the vulcanized fiber used to make them was in short supply, the size was
reduced to less than
that of a dime. The size reduction more than doubled the number obtained
from the same amount
of material. The tokens cost the government $1.19 a thousand to make. I
believe that tons of
them were destroyed after the war, when they were no longer needed, as it
was probably not
practical to recycle the material.