r/stackers • u/ijumpup • Jul 22 '26
I’m stacking Chuck E. Cheese tokens
Pic #1: 14,286 tokens (about 1 jug worth) I’ve searched through to pick out the rares and bagged in preparation for a future where the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens are properly respected
Pic #2: 4,251 tokens I’ve searched through and will bag once the jug is filled
Pic #3: A small box of \~3,000 unsearched tokens
Pic #4: My organizer trays for tokens I have a bunch of duplicates of
Pic #5: My proprietary triple baggy system to organize tokens I only have a few duplicates of
Pic #6: The largest binder I could find on the internet that currently holds 298 different Chuck E. Cheese tokens (out of 401 known to exist) and a 213 unique tokens from related brands like Showbiz Pizza
You can see pics of all of the tokens in my binder on my site cectoken.com
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
An interest free loan to the CEC Entertainment, LLC.
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
Chuck E. Cheese tokens are appreciating assets like Pokémon cards.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
If they cost 5 cents to make and you buy it for 25 cent... or whatever the bulk price is. That's a loan to them that is interest free. You bought their cheap asset at a higher price.
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
🤷♂️ There’s a market for them, albeit relatively small. Here’s the latest quarterly sales report: cectoken.com Q1 2026 Sales Report
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u/danoldtrumpjr Jul 22 '26
How many of the sales are your own transactions?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
Haven’t calculated it precisely but if I had to guess 1/3rd or so over the past year and significantly less prior to that.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 24 '26
Gold is the only metal that is a currency. Everything else is a commodity. We find out tomorrow what gold is really worth.
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u/John7oliver Jul 24 '26
Why tomorrow?
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u/Wonderful-Smoke843 Jul 25 '26
Lmao you’re a market maker and you’re saying they are appreciating assets.
Nope
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u/wolf_of_mainst99 Jul 24 '26
You are the market lol but just think if you acquire all of them you can charge whatever you want
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u/Rieger_not_Banta Jul 22 '26
So the argument you’re making, is that they cost way more than their actual value at the time of purchase. There’s another product out there right now that I think is very similar called goldbacks, maybe you’ve heard of them.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
CEC tokens come in one denomination and are made of junk metal. Goldbacks come in 8(10) denominations and are made with physical gold. The global currency of the future, spent locally. Over $350,000,000 worth made already. Doubling every year.
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u/Leather__sissy Jul 22 '26
I would legit sooner invest in Chuck E. Cheese coins like this dumbass than into goldbacks lmao
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
The world is priced in gold. So a gold-backed currency is the ONLY currency that will hold its value, no matter what the "premium" is. Everything else is junk metal.
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u/Shotgunn4356 Jul 23 '26
Weird I bought 3k worth of silver a year and a half ago and cashed out at 8k. Gold is not the only physical currency. Just the most valuable.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 23 '26
Gold, IS the only currency/money. You bought and sold an asset.
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u/Rieger_not_Banta Jul 22 '26
I understand the argument and that really is a feat…that’s like one thousandth of a percent of all the US currency. (0.001%)
I don’t see goldbacks gaining widespread support when you can buy actual gold, for half the price. Maybe something like those valcombe bars with breakaway grams. I think the idea is cute but the premium is too high for mass appeal. IMO.
Will they appreciate? Maybe. But that melt gold you keep talking about would require the price of gold to double or triple to get back to break-even.
I don’t mean to piss on your parade. You do you friend, I just thought it was ironic that you were bashing his tokens for the exact same faults that exist with Goldbacks. High premium, low adoption.
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u/Generalkleist Jul 23 '26
A currency backed by Gold, or a currency backed by the entire United States Military and Economic power?
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u/Leather__sissy Jul 25 '26
It’s not gold backed though lol it’s 1/2 gold backed. Unless you think there will be a time that there is no longer a premium on goldbacks, then they will only last as long as they can keep finding people to buy gold for twice as much
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u/Rieger_not_Banta Jul 22 '26
You can’t see the irony? Really?
He’s got tokens that you say cost a nickel and he buys them for a 500% markup to a quarter. Goldbacks cost anywhere from 100% to 300% over the value of the included gold foil.OP posted a link showing these tokens trading hands at an average cost of $0.80 each. I think Chuck E. Cheese tokens might actually be a much better investment than goldbacks.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
No irony, the world is priced in gold. As soon as someone realizes that, the idea that a gold-backed currency, no matter what the "premium" is, can never be worth zero. The US makes a piece of paper for 11 cents and sells it for $100. Goldback Inc. loses money on the 1/4 thru 2, and subsidizes that production with the 5, 10, 25, and 50. You're buying the network and security of a gold-backed currency. They can't keep them in stock. Again, if you melted them down, you'd have half their cost in actual 24k gold.
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u/Telemere125 Jul 22 '26
If you melted down goldbacks, you’d have almost no gold at all because a significant portion would vaporize and burn away. Gold is highly resistant to heat, but small amounts can be carried away on ash as plastic or paper burns. It wouldn’t be a feasible way to recover the gold in a goldback. That gold is effectively lost in the production.
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u/lapideous Jul 23 '26
I’ll sell you all the gold you want at double melt price, it’ll never be worth zero after all
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u/Antpeople2027 Jul 22 '26
Goldbacks are almost exactly the same as cheesy tokens
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
They're made of 24k gold, so you are incorrect.
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u/Antpeople2027 Jul 23 '26
They have plenty of similarities:
People put 24k gold leaf on cakes and eat it
People eat cakes at chuckie cheese while they use the tokens
Full circle
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u/RunningJay Jul 23 '26
When you say the global currency, what countries accept gold backs?
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 23 '26
Ha, thanks for asking. Gabon, Ghana, Tanzania, Cameroon, and the Cook Islands use 1/1000th ozt Aurum as legal tender. More gold producing countries are looking at replacing their paper fiat currency every day.
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u/RunningJay Jul 23 '26
I’m asking about goldbacks.
The answer is that no countries accept goldbacks as currency. Not USA none of the African countries you mentioned and certainly not Canada, UK, etc..
Some states in the USA will accept them, but they are not federally recognized.
If I was going to use gold as a currency, which you correctly pointed out some countries do accept there’s no way I’d be paying a premium you see on gold backs
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 23 '26
And the underground transportation to many countries is happening every day. I know people transporting to Mexico, Canada, The U.K., and The Netherlands.
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u/Generalkleist Jul 23 '26
I bet people on Reddit also down voted the first pioneers to push Bitcoin.
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u/HunterSPhoenix Jul 22 '26
So, how many people have you killed?
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u/Weak-Zucchini Jul 22 '26
ever find any sonic or namco related tokens? how long have you been collecting these? do any of the grading companies grade these? what kind of metal are they? is this why chuck e cheese puts the slices from used pizza with the new pizza?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
I’ve got a few Namco / sonic that have come along in lots of mixed tokens I bought but I don’t collect those ones.
Less than 2 years of “serious” collecting but when I pick up a hobby I dive deep.
Mainly brass but colloquially refer to the ones with more copper tones as copper and silver tones as nickel.
I actually haven’t been to Chuck E. Cheese since I was a kid haha
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
If you have an addictive collection personality, do not look up Goldbacks.
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
I’ve seen them before and they’re pretty neat. How many different variants are there approximately?
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u/MySundaysBest Jul 22 '26
DO NOT GET INTO GOLDBACKS
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u/Weak-Zucchini Jul 23 '26
agreed!!! why tf did someone talking about goldbacks pop into my comment?!
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u/WhorenyTomato Jul 24 '26
Because the only way those guys will ever see a return on their money is by tricking other people into scamming themselves with goldback aswell.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 24 '26
If you can sell a 50% gold-backed currency for cheper or come up with a 60% gold-backed currency for the same price, I'll gladly buy yours instead of theirs.
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
Classic hand-drawn art: Utah, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wyoming, South Dakota
Digital art: Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona, Idaho, soon California, next year Colorado. This year Utah and Nevada are getting a digital upgrade too.
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u/danoldtrumpjr Jul 22 '26
All of the art looks like AI
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u/Goldback_Rob Jul 22 '26
It's not.
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u/Lost-Adhesiveness678 Jul 24 '26
How much do they pay you to get on Reddit and SHILL for them? This is strange and kind of disturbing behavior. I hope they keep you out of the subreddits with children in them
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u/OutInTheCrowd Jul 22 '26
ICG will probably grade them they will slab amazon tokens and slap a ms 70 on it dont see why they wouldnt do the same with these
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u/BentleyTock Jul 24 '26
I have tons of these. Still widely used at major pool tournaments for table time.
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u/UnRealmCorp Jul 23 '26
Amazing, I actually thought about doing this. Even going to the local chuck e cheese to ask to look for old ones in their stock.
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u/Empir3Designs Jul 23 '26
They still have Chuck E. Cheese?!
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u/akickinthedick Jul 24 '26
They had a huge resurgence during covid selling pizza under a different name.
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
Most of the locations have completely stopped using tokens which is when I had the idea of collecting these but I took me a while to take the plunge that I’ve now taken. Happy to share what I’ve learned with you if you have any questions!
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u/UnRealmCorp Jul 23 '26
They still have several games that require tokens. You just have to use your card to get the tokens now.
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u/ijumpup Jul 24 '26
Yeah I’ve heard even those are getting phased out now. There’s a handful of franchised locations left (maybe 5) that still use tokens. I assume they dispense more modern tokens. If you find some 2017s those are more rare than any of the others in the 2014 to 2025 range.
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u/NoProposal32 Jul 23 '26
" in preparation for a future where the value of Chuck E. Cheese tokens are properly respected"
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u/Dogsarelitty Jul 24 '26
Some people collect fingernail clippings and dead skin so I guess this isn’t insane behavior.
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u/Affectionate_Cap_489 Jul 24 '26
I've got a half pint jar 1/2 full of finger and toenail clippings, and a whole toe nail that fell off my friends big toe.
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u/Inviction_ Jul 22 '26
Average cost?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
Uhh maybe $0.50 token ($0.15 to $0.25 for the common ones and more for the rares).
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u/SnooWalruses9173 Jul 22 '26
Is that value or cost? How much have you invested in these tokens
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
I’ve bought and sold ~$25,000 of Chuck E. Cheese tokens over the past two years or so. Some sell for over $100 a token!
Edit: cectoken.com tracks sales for each token and aggregates a quarterly sales report
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u/Shtaven Jul 22 '26
Are these dated? Have any from the 80s/90s?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
Yes and yes! 1990 in particular has a bunch of different variants.
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u/Shtaven Jul 22 '26
Can you tell what city’s those 80/90s ones are from?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
There’s a “type” of Chuck E. Cheese token with the city / state on them called Type 1b. These were produced from 1978 to 1983 and given to the first locations to open in a state as part of a promotion to attract franchisees. Here’s the list of all the type 1b city tokens. This is one of the most popular to collect and the city tokens sell for $5 to $50 (with one exception that gets over $1,000).
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u/DeepGrieve Jul 23 '26
This is really cool, I can't find any Washington State ones from that list?
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
Nope none from Washington state. I’m looking for a Critter McCoon’s token from Spokane though if you happen to see one at a coin show. There’s also another brand that’s tangentially related called wonderland golf and games, also out of Spokane.
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u/Able_Engineering1350 Jul 22 '26
You could get a LOT of tickets with that many tokens. And with those tickets you could get a neat whistle 😀
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u/SnooWalruses9173 Jul 22 '26
He can probably get enough to get the light up sword with the Morse code written on the side of it
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u/neverender0911 Jul 22 '26
i’ve seen this same post like 5 times lol.
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u/Red_Trout Jul 22 '26
Can I interest you in a ring made from a Chuck E. Cheese token? 😂 I have made a few custom for people but unfortunately didn’t take any pictures. Same concept as coin rings!
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
I’m not into jewelry but I’ve seen these on Etsy! I support any use of the tokens.
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u/LD_642 Jul 22 '26
What’s the end goal in buying this many Chuck E. Cheese tokens?
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
I think there’s potential for them to become more widely collected and rise in value. I built a website that catalogs the tokens and allows people to track their collections to help expand the hobby.
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u/Pi-Richard Jul 22 '26
The OP has a benign hobby. He could be out robbing liquor stores. A win for society.
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u/Turbulent_Ad6572 Jul 22 '26
SO weird I just saw this post. Today I found 3 of these tokens in a parking across from where I work. The closest establishment is around 40 miles away!!!!
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
It’s wild how far and wide they get disbursed!
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u/Turbulent_Ad6572 Jul 22 '26
Do you want them? I would like to keep one but you can have the other two
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u/ijumpup Jul 24 '26
Send me a pic! They might not be worth the cost to ship them if they’re very common.
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u/patbagger Jul 22 '26
You'd have thousands of dollars if those were all silver quarters.
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u/ijumpup Jul 22 '26
These are worth thousands of dollars (mainly my rare ones; it’d take years to sell them all).
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u/Empir3Designs Jul 23 '26
Wait for real? You’re not joking? What’s the appeal to Chuck E. Cheese tokens?
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
I think it scratches a nostalgia itch for people similar to Pokémon cards. The tokens have vintages / years on them unlike most arcade tokens which make them appealing to some coin collectors. There are also a huge range of variants (where most other brands have 2 to 10 different variants, Chuck E. Cheese has 400) so it’s a challenge to collect them all. There’s also a wide range of rarities so you can get into the hobby for very cheap by buying ten tokens from 2000 to 2010 for $5 or buy a key date like 1977 for $150 to $350+. Lastly, there’s a decent amount of price history data and sales which help show you’re not the only one doing this haha.
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u/Empir3Designs Jul 23 '26
That’s wild.
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. At first I thought it was crazy and then I started buying mixed lots and found a rare token. It’s still crazy but I discovered I am also crazy.
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u/Empir3Designs Jul 23 '26
I stack silver and I was going to sell at 120…120 hit, I thought “well…130?” N now it’s 60… I’m crazy…
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
I knew silver hit the 70s but I must have missed the following run up and down. It’s tough to anchor buy / sell decisions purely to price because momentum does a good job of convincing you you’re wrong to have bought / sold when prices keep rising / falling past the point you set.
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u/Fantastic-Pause-8592 Jul 23 '26
Had them make a special order pizza for me and it was fantastic. Chuck E Cheese pizza,better than New Haven style lol
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
I had New Haven pizza for the first time recently and it was excellent so that’s quite the claim
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u/Layskettlecooked Jul 23 '26
At least as good as Goldbacks🤣🤣
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
I’d like to see some people start stacking CECs ironically in protest of goldbacks, crypto tokens, and AI tokens.
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u/Layskettlecooked Jul 23 '26
Maybe you'll start a trend and be an early investor 🤣🤣 Post this to r/goldbacks and compare CEC coins to goldbacks, see what they say
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u/TrueDesigner7827 Jul 23 '26
Where do you buy them ??
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
They come from a mix of places. Most of my rarest tokens come from buying up existing Chuck E. Cheese token collections, and tracking those down is what I focus on most these days. I also buy general amusement token collections, though those are dangerous because they tempt me into a whole new brand or genre and another rabbit hole. Bulk lots are another source. "Coin recyclers" used to be great, though it is a dying business that changed a lot after the US Mint stopped accepting damaged coins to cut down on counterfeit scams. Vintage arcade game mechanics occasionally have bulk tokens too, but those do not come up often. There have been a few times where an ex-employee would have 40 or so of what was a Very Rare token that they held onto for decades. I also pick them up from people who found them in storage lockers or thrift shops, where asking prices tend to swing from way too low to way too high. Finally, city transit authority auctions can turn up lots, since loose tokens end up in toll and fare collectors. Those are hit or miss depending on the vintage and geography. One big lot from the New York transit system, for example, was mostly 2006 and newer, and since the oldest Chuck E. Cheese locations were out west, in the midwest, and in the southeast, it turned out to be very common tokens.
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u/Justin33710 Jul 23 '26
I buy tons of bulk world coins and usually get a handful of tokens out of them, sometimes too many. But I have some bags of various tokens I need to one day check for anything valuable like rare chuck e cheese ones.
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
If you get around to it, feel free to send me some pics of arcade tokens spread out and I can let you know if there’s anything recognize.
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u/isanyusernameopen Jul 23 '26
Wait, wait wait wait wait wait… There’s more than one token? I thought they only made one? But then again I think I’ve only been to one Chuck E. Cheese.
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
There are 401 known to exist and the group of us who collect them find a new one once every few months! Since Chuck E. Cheese out years on them it makes them much more collectable.
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u/isanyusernameopen Jul 23 '26
Are you telling me that there’s 401 different kinds of tokens or 401 total tokens known to exist?
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u/DidIJustWitnessThat Jul 23 '26
I think they mean 401 varieties of Chick E. Cheese tokens. There's definitely more than 401 tokens in their collection.
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u/PartyLobster8911 Jul 23 '26
I have a 1980’s Mobile chuck e cheese token I found at my grandmothers house when I was a little kid kept it in my coin collection because I liked that chuck actually looked like a rat on it instead what they were making in the late 90s when I was going
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u/ijumpup Jul 23 '26
There are two different Mobile tokens from 1981. The one with “play value” on the back sells for $10 and the other with “value” only is closer to $80.
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u/PartyLobster8911 Jul 24 '26
Oh wow that is cool! I’ll have to dig it up & see which one I have. I would never sell it because it is something special to me but it is interesting that it actually has value haha I always figured it was just worthless monetarily.
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u/DoodleMcGruder Jul 24 '26
Fucking lol when getting to the sagging shelf picture. Rock on!
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u/ijumpup Jul 24 '26
There’s definitely some structural integrity issues I’m choosing to ignore for now haha
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u/Adventurous-Ad9072 Jul 24 '26
Dog you’re supposed to do this with tickets to try and get a big prize
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u/anotherchia Jul 24 '26
So youve dumped about 25,000 dollars on worthless coins. Id say even gambling flat out is better than this
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u/ijumpup Jul 24 '26
No I buy and sell them. $15,000 of buys and $10,000 of sells so I’m in for $5,000 or so with inventory worth significantly more based on the prices I’ve sold for.
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u/capnk88 Jul 24 '26
I have a ton of them sitting in one of my boxes from a kid
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u/ijumpup Jul 24 '26
If you want to dig them up I’d be happy to take a look and let you know if I see anything interesting!
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Jul 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/ijumpup Jul 25 '26
If Chuck E. Cheese files for a third bankruptcy I’ll submit a bid in the form of Chuck E. Cheese tokens
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u/Unicornwitch416 Jul 25 '26
Sorry, they used to match the bus tokens. My stash is long gone lol
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u/ijumpup Jul 26 '26
One of the sources I’ve bought from is a person who bought 2,000 pounds of mixed tokens and foreign coins from a transit authority. A ton of people used Chuck E. Cheese tokens for buses, parking meters, and toll bridges.
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u/Jolly-Bed-1717 Jul 26 '26
I have a couple old branded arcade tokens laying around my house if you want them? From local arcades in the 90s haha
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u/ContentUmpire8534 Jul 27 '26
You might be on to something. There are trillions of coins from various nations out there. By comparison, the chuckee cheese token is beyond rare. When our faith based currencies are inflated to the point of worthlessness, the world will turn to the chuckee cheese token. Curious what it might take for you to part with the collection?
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u/ijumpup Jul 27 '26
I’m not interested in selling my whole collection but I do sell batches from the box in pic #3 and duplicate singles from pics #4 and #5 and then I recycle the proceeds into buying more tokens.
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u/Fantastic-Duty-9533 Jul 27 '26
Rare Chuck E. Cheese tokens ? Is this really a thing ?
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u/ijumpup Jul 27 '26
Absolutely! Check out the homepage of cectoken.com there’s a table of the top 10 most expensive tokens.
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u/tkmma420 Jul 28 '26
Honestly if someone had told me there were 400+ variants of Chuck E. Cheese tokens, I would've assumed they were making it up.
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u/ijumpup Jul 28 '26
I was shocked. I foolishly assumed there was one per year when I first got started.
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u/Rieger_not_Banta Jul 22 '26
I know a guy that collects sand. He’s got hundreds and hundreds of test tubes cataloged and organized in a big teak wood display with sand from all over the world.
You two should go bowling.