image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite.
image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite. front view.
image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite. back view.
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image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite.
image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite. front view.
image displaying six vintage new york transit tokens with dates set in clear lucite. back view.

New York Transit Token History Lucite Set

This set features 6 authentic New York City transit tokens circulated between 1953 to 2003. Starting with the dime-size 50s era token and ending with the “5 Boroughs” pentagram token in the mid-90s.

Originally made as a sample piece and recently unearthed from our vaults, we felt this one-of-a-kind set would look better on someone's shelf or desk as a fun memento.

Set in clear Lucite. Measures 7" x 3-1/8" x 7/8".

NOTE: As of 6/30/26 Tokens has phased out our 35-year-long relationship with the MTA to craft gifts for national retailers, catalogues, and online websites. We will continue to craft products for the NY Transit Museum Stores on an exclusive basis, which you can find at Grand Central Terminal, Lower Broadway, and in Brooklyn, as well as online here. 

In stock

How Tokens & Icons Came to Be

 

Tokens & Icons was founded in 1991 when Ward Wallau was approved for a license with the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). This occurred eleven years after he first approached them in 1980 when they filled in the "Y" of the quarter-sized "Y-cut" subway token.

 

After collecting a hundred of the "Y-cut" tokens, Ward thought they might be a logical way to reincorporate the tokens into New York's daily life and celebrate them as an icon of the city's rich transit history. With his first fifty pairs of authentic New York Subway Tokens, he received positive feedback and thus began his decade-plus endeavor to secure a license.

 

During the eleven years, Ward had intermittent contact with the NYCTA, and finally secured permissions from the NYCTA and the authentic tokens. He and Bulova Watch were the charter licenses. Bulova chose to replicate the tokens, yet Tokens & Coins (the original name of Tokens & Icons) was able to embark with the long sought after "authentic" token.

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