FREE: RARE WOODEN NICKEL SAMBO'S RESTAURANTS, CANON CITY, CO.

The listing, RARE WOODEN NICKEL SAMBO'S RESTAURANTS, CANON CITY, CO. has ended.

Wooden nickle from Sambo's, 1976, "Happy 200th birthday America", about 1.50" diameter.

"RARE" refers to the fact that canon city in the 1970's was a very small prison town and thus fewer tokens where made for them... much tougher to find.

For reference, the History of Sambo's
Sambo's is a restaurant, formerly an American restaurant chain, started in 1957 by Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett. Though the name was taken from portions of the names of its founders, the chain soon found itself associated with The Story of Little Black Sambo. Capitalizing on the coincidence by decorating the walls of the restaurants with scenes from the book, including a dark skinned boy and tigers. By the early 1970s, the illustrations depicted a light skinned boy wearing a jeweled Indian style turban with the tigers. A kids club, Sambo's Tiger Tamers (later called the Tiger Club), promoted the chain's family image.
By 1979, Sambo's had 1,200 outlets in 47 U.S. states. However, in the late 1970s, controversy over the chain's name drew protests and lawsuits in communities that viewed the term Sambo as pejorative towards African Americans, particularly in the Northeastern states. Several of the restaurants were opened as or renamed to ''The Jolly Tiger''. In March 1981, in a further attempt to give the chain a new image the company again renamed some locations, this time to ''No Place Like Sam's''. By November 1981, the company filed for bankruptcy. Neither the name change nor bankruptcy protection reversed the downward trend, and in 1982 all but the original Sambo's at 216 West Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara, California, closed their doors. 618 of the locations were renamed Season's Friendly Eating by February 1983. Battistone is also the original owner of the New Orleans Jazz in the NBA. He later moved the team to Utah and sold it. Battistone's grandson, restaurateur Chad Stevens, owns the original and only remaining Sambo's