Posted 12 years ago
Bluegill85
(6 items)
I was recently out metal detecting an old farm house and came across this old tag. I'm not sure what it is and how old it might be. I was hoping you could help. Thanks
Old B&O RR tag Garrett In #784 | ||
| Railroadiana795 of 1322 |  |  |
Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road baggage tag
Garrett was a rail hub as well as the founders last name.
Thanks for the info walksoftly any idea of how old it might be.
I don't know when they quit using them.
Try this site;
http://www.railroadiana.org/hw/pgBaggageTags.php
Have you found any other interesting items while metal detecting?
Where are my manners?
You're welcome for the info, limited as it was & welcome to CW.
There are others on here that know more than I do about Railroadiana.
Looks like this may be an old fire wood check. Back in the mid 1800's when locomotives burned wood they would pay wood suppliers along the routes with tokens like these which were then redeemed by the rail road for cash.
Forgot to ask; is there any mention of "wood or cord" on the back? If not it could be an early baggage check like walksoftly mentioned.
@ Militarist, would one token equal 1 cord of wood?
No nothing on the back only what u seen on the front
It looks like a tool check from the B&O Garrett IN shops. The B&o had a repair shop in Garrett. The number would have been the employee's number and he would hand the tool check over when he would take out a tool. Upon returning the tool he would be given his tool check back otherwise he was responsible for the replacement of the un-returned tool. Nice Find!
All the wood checks have 1 or a fraction of a cord on them and they are rare. I like railnsail's tool check idea better since it has a round hole while all the baggage checks I've seen have rectangular holes.
Tool check it is then.
Looks like it would hang nicely on a board, with the matching number.
railsnail has hit a home run on this. The CNW used these type of tokens for the same reason,back in the 70's-90's I know of