I recently bought a old token from the street cars.

It says on one side "Good for one fare", on the bottom it says "San Franicisco" On the other side it says in crusive " Samuel Kohm", Presidenton the bottom it says "MARKET ST. RY CO." I am curious to the years this was in existence and any history. Thank You, Kathi Merrick

-- kathi merrick (kathimerrick@hotmail.com), October 19, 2003

Answers

What you've got is a streetcar token from the defunct Market Street Railway in San Francisco. The MSRY was an independent trolley company that operated from 1921 to 1944 when it was bought out by the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Samuel Kahn was its president, and his name appeared on each token.

According to a press release at the time of the takeover, the MSRY had minted 1,000,000 trolley tokens and a third were still believed to be in circulation at that time.

For more information on the Market Street Railway see the following web sites:

http://www.streetcar.org/msr/history/history.html

http://www.cablecarmuseum.com/Library/SuccessChampagne.htm

John

-- John Martini (jamartini@slip.net), October 20, 2003.