A token from the Boondocks

One of the minigolf tokens in my collection came from a visit to play the two miniature golf courses at Boondocks Fun Center in the town of Northglenn, Colorado, USA.

It was one of the arcade machine tokens in use at the fun center when I visited in March 2009.

Do you know of any minigolf courses that still have tokens when you win on the lucky last hole, or in use at attached arcades or fun centres?

Putt-Putt tokens from the USA

A look at some 1980's Putt-Putt tokens from the USA.

From the Crazy Golf Museum's collection.

The very first Putt-Putt Golf course was created by Don Clayton in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA back in 1954.

In the 1960's Putt-Putt franchises began opening outside of the US, in locations such as South Africa, Australia and Japan. There were also courses in the UK, the first of which opened in Sunderland in 1968. Others followed at Flamingo Land in Yorkshire and in Buxton, Derbyshire. However, information on these UK courses is limited.

Do you know of any courses that still have tokens?

A token blog post

I'm a collector of all sorts of minigolf ephemera, items and merchandise and love finding tokens. My friend, rival and co-Curator at the Crazy Golf Museum has a BIG collection of miniature golf tokens and I've got a pretty sizeable selection of other machine and arcade tokens.

A selection of Putt-Putt tokens

It's always nice to find a course still using metal tokens / coins. Some have moved to plastic 'credit' cards, whereas others have always used paper tokens (of which I've got a few from my wins on the Lucky Last Hole).

I won this Free Game Pass by firing the cannon on the Lucky Last Hole on the very first course we visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Does your course still use tokens? If they do please get in touch and share any photos of them.

Related blog posts:
- Tokens
- A gift from Paradise
- Property of Machine
- Clacton Pier
- Minigolf collectables from the Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham
- Adventure Golf at The Pavilion Fun Park in Clacton-on-Sea

Link:
- Miniature Golf, Putt Putt and Crazy Golf tokens at the Crazy Golf Museum

Minigolf collectables from the Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham

As my friends, family and regular readers of the blog will know, I'm a BIG fan of minigolf merchandise and ephemera.

The Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham is a great place for minigolf ephemera

On our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour travels we've collected hundreds of scorecards, leaflets, postcards, pencils, balls, badges, t-shirts, tokens and whatnots.

The great branded scorecards and coasters at the Lost City Adventure Golf in Nottingham

A classic way to encourage repeat visits in the miniature golf business is to employ a 'Lucky Last Hole' where, as a bonus, you can try and win a free game - we've played a fair few on our travels, and won on some of them.

You're very likely to find a 'Top Hole' on an Arnold Palmer Putting Course and the Free Game Cards are great. They're well made and often draw on the history of the putting franchise.

In this day and age most courses that give out free games for Lucky Last Hole wins use a paper or card based 'token', and very few still give metal coins to winners.

Except for the Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham. If you're skilled - and lucky - enough you might just win a piece of treasured Inca Gold!

The Lost City Adventure Golf's Temple Trail and Sacred Skull Pass courses were the 330th and 331st we played on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. The 36-hole indoor layout has two Lucky Last Holes - both are actually the 18th hole of the course, rather than standalone holes.

The lucky last hole on the Sacred Skull Trail

The 18th Top Hole on the Temple Trail course

When we've played as members of the general public we've not been able to master the lucky last holes at Nottingham, and when we've played there in national tour competitions we've only used one course and skipped the 18th, replaying the 1st hole instead. So unfortunately we've never won a free game there.

I did win a bronze medal at the Midlands Invitational Tournament at the course last year though

But the team at the Lost City were kind enough to send me a nice package that contained a branded pen and two magnificent tokens in a cardboard slip case. Fantastic additions to my collection.

Two pieces of prized Inca Gold from Nottingham

A nice Lost City branded pen

What's more, the Lost City Adventure Golf also has it's own handstamp applied to its mail! Absolutely brilliant to see. There aren't nearly enough minigolf stamps, postmarks or handstamps in circulation.

The Lost City Adventure Golf have really gone to town on their branding - on our travels to 675 courses it's the only place we've seen with an Adventure Golf table! Marvellous.

The theming in Nottingham is brilliant

Check out the Lost City Adventure Golf's website for more details, opening times and prices.

The Lost City Adventure Golf course is well worth a visit

Links:
- The Lost City Adventure Golf
- The Crazy Golf Museum

Related blog posts:
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Ephemera
- Merchandise
- Token
- Tokens
- The Lost City Adventure Golf at The Cornerhouse in Nottingham
- Revisiting The Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham
- A gift from Paradise

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Property of Machine

As a collector of amusement arcade, crazy golf and theme park ephemera and tokens I'm always on the lookout for interesting bits and pieces.

While en route to Clacton-on-Sea we stopped off in Colchester, Essex and spotted a coin stall at the street market. I had a quick look through and managed to find four tokens for my collection. Check out the pics below to see one of them.

What sort of amusement?

Look at that rampaging man! Is that The Machine?

My fellow collector Tim 'Ace Man' Davies sent me a link to Mals Machine Tokens which has got a LOT more details on tokens! You can see more on the token above on the Samson page.

Check out Tim's haul of Crazy Golf, Mini Golf, Adventure Golf and Putt-Putt tokens on The Crazy Golf Museum and MiniatureGolfer.com websites.

Related blog posts:
- Token
- Oliver 'The Machine' Florence