FRANCE, THAON LES VOSGES, large cooperative token

DescriptionThe Thaon Society was a prolific issuer of tokens and a lot of those tokens have survived. The countermarking, even though it references 1951, was applied in 1960 or 1961 to revalue the tokens according to the reformed new franc, worth 100 old francs.Cooperative societies and mutual benefir were a big thing in Europe in the late 19th through mid-20th centuries. You or your business would buy into the organization, which provided legal and physical infrastructure. Some grew large enough to essentially run parts of municipal governments.France has been a hotbed of numismatic activity since Celtic times in the 3rd century BC. People making their own coins (tokens, imitations, counterfeits) was a normal activity wherever and whenever there was a coin shortage. Keeping in mind, of course, in this coinless age, that coins were THE way people did business until the 20th century. In France they were using tokens in the normal, local way we think of tokens being used, from the 15th century.A token is used like a coin but is not a coin. Rather, it stands for a coin without the value of the coin. Maybe its copper, but says its value is the same as a silver coin. Usually tokens were made privately, but sometimes governments got involved.The word “exonumia” is used to describe all kinds of things that are “like” coins but are not coins. I wrote a blog post on that subject. Basic categories: 1. used like a coin but not issued by a national government, 2. looks like a coin but not made for spending, 3. other things that we are interested in.