Jeton
Encyclopedia
Token coin
In the study of numismatics, tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia. Tokens are used in place of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape...
or coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
-like medals produced across Europe from the 13th through the 17th centuries. They were produced as counters for use in calculation on a lined board similar to an abacus
Abacus
The abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of...
. They also found use as a money substitute in games, similar to modern casino chips or poker chips. Thousands of different jetons exist, mostly of religious and educational designs, as well as portraits, these most resembling coinage.
Roman calculi
The Romans had similarly used pebblePebble
A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered to be larger than granules and smaller than cobbles . A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate...
s, in Latin "calculi" - little stones. Addition is straight forward, and relatively efficient algorithms for multiplication and division were known.
Arabic numerals
As Arabic numeralsArabic numerals
Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...
and the zero came into use, "pen reckoning" gradually displaced "counter casting" as the common accounting method. Jetons for calculation were commonly used in Europe from about 1200 to 1400, and remained in occasional use into the early nineteenth century. In Italy pen reckoning became common earlier, and was mandatory for bookkeeping use by 1300.
The Late Middle Ages
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, was in the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
an important center of production of jetons for commercial use. Later - "counter casting" being obsolete - the production shifted to jetons for use in games and toys, sometimes copying more or less famous jetons with a political background as the following.
In "the Nederlanden", the Low Countries, the respective mints in the late Middle Ages in general produced the counters for the official bookkeeping. These mostly show the effigy of the ruler within a flattering text and on the reverse the rulers escutcheon and the name or city of the accounting office.
The 16th century onwards
During the Dutch RevoltDutch Revolt
The Dutch Revolt or the Revolt of the Netherlands This article adopts 1568 as the starting date of the war, as this was the year of the first battles between armies. However, since there is a long period of Protestant vs...
(1568–1609) this pattern changed and by both parties, the North in front, about 2,000 different, mostly political, jetons (Dutch: Rekenpenning) were minted depicting the victories, ideals and aims. Specifically in the last quarter of the 16th century, where "Geuzen" or "beggars" made important military contributions to the Dutch side and bookkeeping was already done without counters, the production in the North was just for propaganda.
The mints and treasuries of the big estates in Central Europe used their own jetons and then had a number of them struck in gold and silver as New Year gifts for their employees who in turn commissioned jetons with their own mottoes and coats-of-arms. In the sixteenth century, the Czech Royal Treasury bought between two and three thousand pieces at the beginning of each year.
Modern use
In the 21st century, Jetons continue to be used in some countries to denominate the substitutes for coins in coin-operated public telephonesPayphone
A payphone or pay phone is a public telephone, often located in a phone booth or a privacy hood, with pre-payment by inserting money , a credit or debit card, or a telephone card....
or vending machine
Vending machine
A vending machine is a machine which dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, consumer products and even gold and gems to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine....
s, because automatic valuation of coins by machines is unreliable or impossible due to several factors. They are usually made of metal or hard plastic, and are generally called tokens in English-speaking countries.
In France and other countries, jeton is also a small (as a token, so to speak) amount of money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
paid to members of a society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
or a legislative chamber each time they are present in a meeting
Meeting
In a meeting, two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal setting.- Definitions :An act or process of coming together as an assembly for a common purpose....
.
See also
- Casino tokenCasino tokenCasino tokens are small discs used in lieu of currency in casinos. Colored metal, injection molded plastic or compression molded clay tokens of various denominations are used primarily in table games, as opposed to metal token coins, used primarily in slot machines...
- Devotional medalDevotional medalIn the Roman Catholic Faith, a devotional medal is a medal issued for religious devotion. They are also sometimes used by adherents of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches....
- Location arithmeticLocation arithmeticLocation arithmetic is a technique to do binary arithmetic using a chessboard-like grid. John Napier termed the technique in his treatise Rabdology, from the way that positions of counters on the board represented numbers....
- Telephone tokenTelephone tokenTelephone tokens were once widespread medium of exchange for people wanting to talk on public phones with someone before there were telephone cards to collect and use. These tokens were once widely used in Europe, Israel, Japan, and South America, and are still used today in Turkey.Phone tokens...