The Fountain 5¢ Token

[Bryan V]

Found this token today.
after a short olive oil soak it came out looking pretty nice.

i couldn't find any info. On this particular coin so I was hoping for a little help.
its slightly bigger than a quarter and thin as a dime.
no markings on the back. Just the same outer decorative boarder as the front.
found in eastern Washington state. (Spokane)
Thanks
Bryan V

 

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[idahotokens]

Nice find, Bryan! This token is going to be a challenge to attribute. I have been interested in this type of maverick token for several years and have learned a bit about them. They were made by the Hanson company of Chicago and are generally from the 1895-1905 period, give or take a few years. Almost all of them are mavericks (no town or state), but many have names that identify them with a fair degree of certainty. The company made tokens for saloons, billiard halls, general stores, and dairies - the bulk of them were for businesses in Illinois and surrounding states, but there are known ones from as far as Washington. So yours could either be from a business local to where you found it or it was carried there from a distance. Just doing a newspaper quick search, I find that there was a well-known Fountain Saloon in Walla Walla in 1904-08 and one in Pullman ca. 1896. Neither of those references prove anything by themselves, though. I call these "P-38" mavericks because to me the ornament below the 5¢ looks like an oncoming P-38 fighter airplane from WWII.
John in the Great 208

 

[idahotokens]

Further checking - in 1903 there was a Fountain Saloon at the corner of Sprague & Monroe (903 Sprague) in Spokane. Again, nothing is proven
John

 

[Bryan V]

Further checking - in 1903 there was a Fountain Saloon at the corner of Sprague & Monroe (903 Sprague) in Spokane. Again, nothing is proven
John

Thanks John. That is great information!
I found it just off Sprague less than two miles from Monroe.

 

[idahotokens]

Bryan--

Well, that is a good bit of evidence to add to the mix. I'll contact the Spokane token collectors I know to see if any of them have seen one of these, but I doubt it because they normally post all their tokens on tokencatalog.com
John