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Artificially Aged BYOAC token
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tetsujin:
Hey,

So I was lucky enough to get a great deal on 500 of the brass BYOAC tokens...  The tokens are still incredibly shiny.  In fact, a little too shiny for my tastes.  They seem almost artificial, like metal-plated plastic or something.  So I decided to play around with a few of them to see how they might look after they've been used for a few years:




The one in the middle was just handled a lot over the period of a few days.  It's hard to tell the difference in the photos, but it's accumulated a little grime and lost some of that super-polished shine.  The one on the far right I dipped in acid (a modeler's chemical called "Blacken-It", to be exact), and then cleaned it up and wore down some of the blackened areas so the brass color could show through again.

There's no way I'm going to be hand-weathering 500 tokens...  But I really wanted to see how the tokens would look after some wear and tear - I'm used to T (Boston Subway) tokens and my old Dream Machine tokens having a very lived-in, tarnished brass finish, and I feel like I accomplished that with this token.

I think it really brings out the design - because so much surface area of the token is raised (compared to Dream Machine tokens, for instance, where everything is just raised outlines) the design really "pops" out as most everything else is left dark.  I think the atom side benefits most from that, as it has more detail than the happy player side.

Anyway, I thought I'd share.
Chris:
And to think I've been trying to figure out how to keep them shiny!  :)  I have a handful stored in air-tite capsules to keep them shiny forever...

I can already see the difference in shine between the BYOAC tokens and the MAME tokens, minted just a few months apart...

--Chris
telengard:

--- Quote from: tetsujin on February 25, 2005, 12:01:17 am ---Hey,

So I was lucky enough to get a great deal on 500 of the brass BYOAC tokens...  The tokens are still incredibly shiny.  In fact, a little too shiny for my tastes.  They seem almost artificial, like metal-plated plastic or something.  So I decided to play around with a few of them to see how they might look after they've been used for a few years:




The one in the middle was just handled a lot over the period of a few days.  It's hard to tell the difference in the photos, but it's accumulated a little grime and lost some of that super-polished shine.  The one on the far right I dipped in acid (a modeler's chemical called "Blacken-It", to be exact), and then cleaned it up and wore down some of the blackened areas so the brass color could show through again.

There's no way I'm going to be hand-weathering 500 tokens...  But I really wanted to see how the tokens would look after some wear and tear - I'm used to T (Boston Subway) tokens and my old Dream Machine tokens having a very lived-in, tarnished brass finish, and I feel like I accomplished that with this token.

I think it really brings out the design - because so much surface area of the token is raised (compared to Dream Machine tokens, for instance, where everything is just raised outlines) the design really "pops" out as most everything else is left dark.  I think the atom side benefits most from that, as it has more detail than the happy player side.

Anyway, I thought I'd share.

--- End quote ---

Oh man, did you say Dream Machine tokens?  I have been looking for one of those for ages.  I grew up inside of the Dream Machine in Methuen Mass.  They never seem to pop up on eBay.   :(
Are they still around anywhere?
tetsujin:
I just have the one Dream Machine token, which I got by bringing in my report card ages ago.  :)

I do want to keep some of the BYOAC tokens minty fresh...  Makes for good display, and for souvenirs for guests.  But I'd like a lot of them to be "broken in", too...  that'll take a long time, though.  :)
M3talhead:
I actually like the dipped tokens. As for keeping a set "shiny" you guys might want to look at investing in a coin book. One used for quarters would be just about perfect, and think, if you're a real arcade enthusiast, you could start a collection of not only the different MAME coins, but of Alladin's castle, Timeout, and the rest (if you can find em).
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