Memorabilia

While digging around for my stash of old concert tickets, I found a few other things I've been holding onto for some time for no particular reason. Or maybe the reason I kept things is just because they were interesting to me at one time.

When the new Southwest Corridor portion of the Orange Line opened in 1987, the MBTA issued commemorative tokens. I found this one on the ground, either inside a station or near it, and I've had it all this time. The T hasn't used tokens of for, I don't know, seven or eight years? Whenever the system started using CharlieCards.

Regular tokens were a brassy color; these were silver-colored to make them distinctive. I know my pictures came out crappy, so one side says "opening May 1987" and the other says "Southwest Corridor Orange Line."

(I just found this article that says, among other things, that tokens could still be redeemed for CharlieCard value for years after they were no longer usable to pay fares directly; I had no idea. It also mentions that 10,000 tokens like mine were made.)