Notes & Quotes Arcade Game Token book
I picked up this little 6″ x 8″ spiral bound book, titled “Notes & Quotes”, simply because it had token images on the cover. The text alluded to more information about tokens and the business side of the arcade industry as well. With a blog named “Tokens Only”, I thought it only fitting to get some token data up on the site.
I had only seen the cover image on eBay and wasn’t sure what to expect, but when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has token info, marketing strategies, business projections and even touches on the psychology of arcade tokens, circa 1982.
While I can’t give the book any bonus points for layout, it is jammed full of arcade industry information. Notes & Quotes is 150 plus pages of bizarre marketing techniques, business strategies and sample token artwork for the amusement equipment operator. “Notes & Quotes” was published by Van Brook of Lexington, Inc., the #1 worldwide vendor of amusement and vending equipment tokens. While I’m not sure about the claim, I do know that they still exist, which means they survived the arcade bust. Check out the current Van Brook website HERE if you’d like to view their current product lineup. I scanned the entire Notes & Quotes book and added it to my resources page. Check it out and let me know what you think. For now I’ll just highlight a few of the pages I thought were interesting.
Tags: Arcade documentation, arcade game tokens, arcade resources
November 25th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I had never thought of the quantities of tokens necessary, but when they used that example for $3k, which probably was middle ground for some good arcades, that is a ton of Tokens.
I couldn’t read all of that stuff though, I’m not quite that interested….but the psychology of tokens put into words something that certainly is logical, playing to human perception.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Lot’s of tokens sure, but also lot’s of $ made back in the day! I was surprised to read about “walk-away” profits. The idea that someone walking away with a handful of tokens is instant profit. You paid .08 cents per token and “sold” it for .25 cents so if someone walks out with them you actually profit. Even more so if the tokens have been “sold” a few times already.
It is a lot to read, but when you are forced to scan one set of pages at a time, it gets read out of sheer boredom