Tokens all bagged and ready to go. Photo by MBTA.
Saturday is the last day you can use an old T token to buy or add value to a CharlieCard or ticket. The MBTA reports it's now sitting on a cache of 3.4 million tokens - stored in its money room - about 5 1/2 years after it sold the last one. Spokesman Joe Pesaturo says that with the official end of the token era, the authority will likely solicit bids from companies interested in buying them all as scrap. Pesaturo adds:
This year (through last week), 12,479 tokens were redeemed in fare vending machines. This is a tiny fraction of the 9,574,332 transactions at FVMs during the same time period this year. The value of the tokens also represents a very small fraction of all revenue collected at the FVMs during that time frame. Value of tokens equal $15,598.75. Total Revenue Collected equals $72,049,918.35.
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Comments
Could a local news site that has them for a logo use them?
By cdevers
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 1:46pm
Seems like this could be a unique marketing opportunity for any local web sites that just happen to use the token as part of their logo. But what kind of marketing stunt would do?
Bikes, cars, and slingshots
By Bluto
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:04pm
UH could sponsor a paintball-like battle royale--bicyclists versus motorists, in equal numbers. Each group armed with slingshots, protective gear, and 100 tokens each. Shutdown the Mass Ave. bridge, and let them go at it...
Here's a sure winner
By adamg
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:36pm
Drop sacks of tokens from a helicopter. Especially if we could entice Les Nessman out of retirement.
As god as my witness...
By Kaz
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:38pm
I thought sacks of T Tokens could fly...
On the other hand ...
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 4:02pm
Maybe they would hit some flocks of turkeys ...
For that matter, how about
By roadman
Mon, 07/02/2012 - 1:03pm
Walter Dyer, the man who once claimed he set up a publicity stunt to drop $100 bills from a light plane into Central Square Lynn.
I say "claimed" because none of the money allegedly dropped was ever found.
And in a related story, the T notes that
By roadman
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:04pm
approximately 900 million CharlieTickets have been discarded in the trash since the elimination of the reuseable tokens.
To tokens recycled
By PK
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:14pm
They are very popular for crafters and jewelry
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67312880/boston-t-mta-...
They even make it into the trash?
By anon
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:15pm
I usually find them blowing around on the ground/station floor/train floor.
Finding a token used to make my day. Now, I just find litter.
CharlieTickets with remaining value should become much rarer
By Ron Newman
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 4:17pm
It used to be, and maybe still is, common to find discarded $5 CharlieTickets with $1 left over (after two $2 subway trips). Now that the cost of a CharlieTicketed subway ride is rising to $2.50, this won't happen much anymore.
I could not add tokens to my CharlieCard last night
By Ron Newman
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:10pm
at any of the Davis Square Charlie machines -- even though they are supposed to accept the tokens through this Saturday.
WardMaps.com could probably buy some of them
By Ron Newman
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:12pm
to make into cufflinks, earrings, and other souvenirs.
(by the way, Adam, did you intend to link to some news story here?)
No, this is some token original reporting
By adamg
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 2:14pm
Just something I slotted onto the site.
hmmmm...
By John-W
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 10:54pm
Coining a joke are we? Well, go on and test your mettle. As we say in Eastie, "dime un otro."
anybody adding to this pun thread
By BikerGeek
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 2:01am
should be slugged.
hey,
By John-W
Fri, 06/29/2012 - 10:19am
...it's not like once we get started we can just turn on a dime.
Token hires remain after June 30
By Mark02474
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:00pm
No technology seems able to displace token and political hiring in Massachusetts...
Giveaways
By anon
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:16pm
Since they won't be worth anything, I wouldn't mind having a couple, just for the heck of it. I used to have some, but I cashed them in a while back.
Remember the previous non-token era of the 70s?
By anon
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:21pm
Keep in mind, the entire MBTA cache of tokens sat untouched in a vault somewhhere for years once before. Sometime in the early 70s the token system was done away with and the turnstyles accepted coins only. Remember that era? Tokens were brought back at some point in the 80s I believe, and went back into circulation.
Indeed I do
By adamg
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:37pm
I think they brought the tokens back when the fares jumped from 25 cents (yes, kids, a quarter used to be enough to get you onto the T - unless you planned to get off in some faraway place like Quincy, in which case you had to pack another quarter).
Sell them
By anon
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:24pm
at a buck a piece that's 3.4 million dollars dropped into the T coffers. It won't close any sort of budget hole, but it's not a drop in the bucket either.
I'd buy a roll if only as a souvenir.
Not such a bad idea
By cdevers
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:45pm
I was actually thinking the same — I wouldn't mind having a few for nostalgia value. I haven't seen one in years…
Jewelry
By Suldog
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 3:52pm
You could make many times that if some were fashioned into "limited edition" jewelry - necklaces, bracelets, earrings, cufflinks, tie clips...
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Who wouldn't want a shiny T token as a souvenir?
By LifeStar
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 4:12pm
I was talking about this idea with my co-workers and we all agreed that paying $5 for a roll of polished tokens would be a nice keepsake. Why doesn't the T just sell these tokens in their souvenir shops? It'll be worth more than having them processed as generic scrap metal.
The T (or someone licensed by
By Steve P.
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 6:48pm
The T (or someone licensed by them, I don't recall the details) used to sell cufflinks and all sorts of other token-upcycling junk. Kind of like the seats from the old Garden.
I was dumping a bunch of change into one of those Coinstar machines this winter and a few tokens fell out as rejects from the counting machine.
Someday I'll tell someone's grandkids how back in the day we had not only metal money, but metal pseudo money that we stuck in boxes to get onto diesel buses. And I'll show them a grimy old token and smile at the absurdity of it all.
Why wouldn't they be required to honor them...
By anon
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 4:54pm
for seven years essentially like gift cards?
If only...
By R Hookup
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 5:45pm
they don't even honor Charlie tickets for that long.
I'm not a lawyer or anything
By Registration Pe...
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 1:05am
I'm not a lawyer or anything so there might be other legal issues involved, but the gift certificate expiration law explicitly uses the phrase "gift certificate" which officially is defined to be something "purchased by a buyer for use by a person other than the buyer." Since MBTA tokens and Charlie Cards are both in theory and in practice used primarily by the same people who buy them, it wouldn't seem to qualify.
vintage T
By the passenger
Wed, 06/27/2012 - 11:39pm
When the Southwest Corridor opened in 1987 there were commemorative tokens around for a while that were silver-colored instead of the usual (brass-colored?). I saved one of them and still have it.
Tall Ships Come to Boston, 1992!
By thetrainmon
Mon, 07/02/2012 - 11:42am
My mother still has some of the Tall Ships Commemorative tokens from from they came to Boston in 1992!
Other Value?
By Suldog
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 8:48am
Vecturism, anyone?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
http://www.mbta.com/fares_and
By Saul
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 9:11am
http://www.mbta.com/fares_and_passes/charlie/?id=2...
Effective July 20, 2012, the MBTA will no longer redeem tokens. Due to increased demand to redeem tokens before July 20, 2012, we will continue to accept tokens via fare vending machines at the following locations:
Downtown Crossing, Harvard Square, Riverside, Ruggles, Quincy Center, and Government Center Stations.
Customers will be able to redeem tokens for CharlieCard/Ticket value via Fare Vending Machines at these locations.
The MBTA will also redeem tokens for CharlieCard/Ticket value during normal business hours at the Downtown Crossing Pass Office and 10 Park Plaza, Suite 4730.
That link also says, "One Way
By anon
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 1:24pm
That link also says, "One Way Single Rides for Zone 9 and Zone 10 will be charged at the One Way Fare at all times".
What the heck does that mean?
Are they trying to say that the $3 on-board surcharge won't apply for these tickets? That would make some sense, since they never bothered to update the Charlie ticket machines to sell these zones.
If that is the case, if you're going to Providence and don't have a ticket, you can pay just 50 cents extra instead of the $3 surcharge by buying a ticket to TF Green, if the train goes there.
I want
By fibrowitch
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 1:09pm
A bag full of tokens. I have a single token in a little frame, which I carried with me for years before I came back home.