Germany Consum Verein (Konsumvereins) Tokens 1880 to 1930

Consumer cooperatives (consum verein) were very popular in Germany around the turn of the 20th century. Tokens were issued in pfennig and mark denominations by co-ops in individual locations, Schwabach in the pictured token, while requester Jack has one from the German town of Meuselwitz. There are dozens of tokens with dozens of patterns. Collecting a comprehensive set would be a laudable numismatic challenge.

Very few of these tokens survive today. They were generally made in low-quality metal with basically uninteresting designs. After all, the idea with a co-op is to save money. This means they are difficult for collectors to find and, when nice ones are found, they command decent value. However, there are very few collectors of such material.

Setting accurate estimates of value is difficult. Worn, beat-up tokens will be worth a few US dollars at most. Nicely preserved tokens, like the one in our picture, can bring $30 retail value. Holed tokens are worth a dollar or two.

Very, very generally, catalog values run like this:

worn: $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $25
well preserved: $50
fully uncirculated: $200
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