Gilkes calls Osborne ``a topflight company. _ Promotional coins, such as the 17 million 1996 Olympic Games coins General Mills distributed in cereal boxes. _ Millions of doubloons used each year at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. _ Commemorative sports coins, such as one marking the opening of Denver’s Coors Field in 1995 and another commemorating the Chicago Bulls’ NBA championships. _ ``Sobriety coins″ given to members of Alcoholics Anonymous to mark the anniversary of the day they stopped drinking. The company has made more than 100 million transit tokens for New York City. Philadelphia’s SEPTA mass transit system has bought 14 million train, trolley and bus tokens from Osborne since 1990. Green Duck Corp., based in Hernando, Miss., is Osborne’s primary competitor, particularly in producing tokens for the booming casino gambling industry. Today it’s a smaller field of private mints competing for business. ``You had lots of different companies start up producing tokens for companies and merchants that were used as change.″ ``There was the need for small change _ all the copper was being used for the war,″ Gilkes said. Many private mints opened during the Civil War. The first mint in what now is the United States was established in 1652 in Boston, prompted by a shortage of British coins and an influx of Dutch and Spanish coins. There are 40 to 50 private mints in the United States, said Paul Gilkes, a senior writer for Coin World magazine. ``We had train tracks running up to the building _ they were loading up cars every day,″ said Stegman, whose family bought the mint two years after the war. Using 1,300 workers around the clock, Osborne made 5 billion of the red and blue tokens in five months _ as many as 80 million a day. Roosevelt.ĭuring World War II, the Office of Price Administration commissioned Osborne to make tokens to replace the small change handed out when food rationing coupons were redeemed. Osborne also made campaign coins for eight other presidential candidates, including Ulysses S. ``He ran with the beard, which was good _ he was really ugly without it.″īoth sets of dies still sit in the company vault. ``He couldn’t decide how he was going to run _ with or without the beard, so he had us make two sets (of coin dies) showing him each way,″ Stegman said. Lincoln needed Osborne’s help as he wrestled with the beard-or-no-beard question in 1864, during his second presidential campaign. In the last century, politicians often relied on the company to produce the inexpensive coins they gave away on the campaign trail. ``We’ve got a long, rich history,″ vice president Jeffrey Stegman said. Bisbee Co., is the oldest private mint in the country, making everything from subway tokens to commemorative sports coins on this city’s industrial west side. Osborne Coinage, established in 1835 as the Z. Today, when the Chuck E Cheese’s pizza chain needs tokens for its restaurant games, it calls Osborne. When food rationing tokens were needed during World War II, Osborne Coinage came through. CINCINNATI (AP) _ Had Abraham Lincoln decided to shave his beard to run for president, Osborne Coinage Co.
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