PNA = PAN NORDIC AUTOMATER

[FosseWay]

Any ideas on this token or whatever it is?

It may have a Scandinavian connection, since mine was bought in Sweden and the only other one I've found on the web is one that was sold on Tradera in February.

Cupro-nickel, 22.5 mm, 5.09 g

[Globetrotter]

any confirmation?

ole

[FosseWay]

No, not as yet. I've come across others with PNO, which I think is Pan Nordic, but have no evidence of a connection.

[Figleaf]

The numbers are aligned, the letters are not. It looks like a generic token, numbered automatically with the letters punched in separately. A diameter of 22.5 mm would have been perfect for a Dutch coffee machine token, but why number those?

Peter

[malj1]

The 3 is slightly askew too.

[Figleaf]

Th top of the 3 matches the style of the top of the one. The 1 looks too small, but that's also an optical illusion.

Peter

[malj1]

This one on Colnect is very similar? as is the size and metal ...but they don't give any reason for selecting Germany as its origin.

[Figleaf]

Maybe they just mean "produced in Germany"? Even for that, I see no evidence.

Peter

[johnkooij]

This is a coppernickel 22.5 mm token, reverse blanc. Who can tell me more about it?

[malj1]

This is Pan Nordic Automater and listed in British machine tokens as Hayes 309A. Probably Swedish?

It is missing from my collection of these!

[FosseWay]

I think (am at work atm and can't check) that this is also listed in Norske Polletter, so it may be Norwegian. However a listing there, as in Hayes, simply means it's been used in Norway and it could still be Swedish. I can't find much online about Pan Nordic Automater; Google searches are frustrated by the existence of other similarly named organisations.

There are several PNA tokens.

[malj1]

I found this address:

PAN NORDIC AUTOMATION
P O Box 8
43040 Saro. Sweden

 here which says from 6 Part III — Coin Machines - Cash Box — July 6, 1974

I found the Cash Box magazine here for July 1974  ...see 14 Part III Coin Machines.

Would  Automater mean something different to Automation?

[FosseWay]

That's very interesting, not least because Särö is about 5 km from me 

The postcode 43040 no longer exists but the range of postcodes used in Särö is still in that ballpark (429xx).

Automation means the same in Swedish as in English - it is the act or process of making something automatic. Automater is the plural form of automat, the actual machine involved. Whether Pan Nordic Automater and Pan Nordic Automation are the same entity I don't know; Särö certainly strikes me as a strange place to have a large industrial concern, since it consists mainly of large detached houses and not commercial areas. But the financial HQ of an organisation need not be the same place as where its products are made or stored, of course.

I will see if I can dig further at Bolagsverket (equivalent of Companies House), since if the Särö organisation is the same as the token issuer, I need to add it to the material for the Halland tokens book we're working on at Gothenburg Numismatic Association.

[malj1]

I think the company may date from 1949 but unsure as I may have read the Swedish incorrectly and got the wrong end of the stick!

[FosseWay]

You've read the Swedish right if this page is anything to go by:



(Handelskalender 1971)

This gives two companies with HQ at the same PO box in Särö as you found earlier - Pan Nordic Automation AB and Pan Nordic Operating AB. Elsewhere, in the publication Billboard, 1966-04-09, I've come across a Norwegian branch, Pan Nordic Automation A/S, with the same president as the Swedish sister company.