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A couple of badges I bought recently, I've seen refered to as JETTONs. Where does this word come from and what does it mean? What's the history behind this type of award. The two I have are both engraved with the person's name. Were these every awared with documents or the like? Anyone care to share some examples with the forum?
Kind Regards,
Shane Cook.
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Ron,
They are still using jettons today for the metro, at least in St Petersburg and in Moscow that is.
Marc
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04-12-2005, 06:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-12-2005, 06:36 PM by kameli.)
The word "jetton" comes in 1500 century from the French verb "jeter" (= drop or something like that in English). Originally the jettons were somekind of "drop coin" which were given to the people in special events. That kind of events were for example the coronation days, royal weddings etc. Later jetton means a medal which was given to civil servants in every year. With the years jeton became to mean a gambling counter and so on.
In Russia the jetton means little jewel pendant. Often these were personal gifts. These were very popular in late 19th century to the beginning of 20th century and also in a little scale after the revolution.
My opinion is that a jetton is a very different thing than a token. Tokens are use in metros, telephones etc. and mainly use for them is to pay something. But just my thought...
Regards,
Jussi-Pekka