For me, that's one of the challenges of collecting gaming tokens. You look for the best you can find, hopefully uncirc. If you have to take a lower grade for your collection, you keep looking for a better one to replace it. In addition to the collector sets issued by FM in 1965-69, I've picked up all the Franklin Mint produced dollars from 1979-1985 (when they quit) in AU or better condition but it's taken me about 8 years to do it! You usually have the dealers' token books at the shows to yourself as there aren't many other serious collectors. The best source for high grade older tokens I've found is Howdy Herz... I've spent hours looking through his boxes at the shows and always find 10-12 that I need. Vince Mowery and Charlie Rodgers also bring tokens to the shows they set-up for.

Beauty is in the eye of the collector, but there's nothing more beautiful to me than a pristine token with a great artistic design. Look at some of the designs on the tokens from the 1960's. There's no comparison to the quick-and-dirty designs put out by most clubs today. If you want to collect these 25 year old gems, you'd better start soon!

And if you want a specialty that almost NOBODY is collecting, look at higher denomination tokens. Not many other than high-limit slot players know there are tokens other than fractionals and dollars. Most larger clubs have $5 $25, and $100 gaming tokens and they are not being saved in high grades. There are also thick $10 tokens at many clubs; NOT the premium tokens issued just to be collected, but real gaming tokens meant to be dropped in a slot. A word to the wise 'investor'.