What does the other side look like?

rofl. The characters say Texas in Japanese. This has got to be some sort of souvenir, perhaps for a Japanese group of some sort coming there to sightsee or a convention.

Both sides are exactly the same, and it is about the size of a quarter.

Umm, wonder if it would work in a slot machine - lol!

The 4 characters across the top may represent cattle brands. Those could be stylized japanese characters.

During the 1930 and in to WW2, tokens like this one appeared ian a large number of places. Some were embossed cardboard. Those were used as tax tokens, street car and city bus fares, and as premiums. A tax token usually had the term, tax and the amount on it. Several cities issued their own tax tokens and these were for 1 cent or a fraction of a cent. These were used locally to collect sales tax. I do not think that your Texas coin is a tax token because there is no monetary amount on it.

Since it is about rhe size of a quarter, it may have been a slot machine coin or a souvenir

The four characters across the top spell out the phonetic word "Texas" in Japanese. They aren't 'stylized' characters representing cattle brands. I wasn't guessing it when I said that, I was reading it.

Since the characteres sound out "texas" in japanese, I'd hazard a guess that it was a souvenir for a tour group of Japanese.

It has some interesting feaures: A cactus and a 10 gal hat bearing a lone star.

Hmm....wasn't that just what Calliope said in her 1st post?

LOL......thanks for correctly identifying it as a ten gallon hat, instead of the top hat the OP mentioned. That was bugging me.

Now that you mention it, I don't suppose you'd see many Texas cowboys wearing top hats, lol.

There was a German-Japanese interment camp in Texas during WW2. Tokens were used in camp for money. I checked this out and found that red and blue tokens were used. Some tokens were naturaly metal color after the color worn off. All of the tokens displayed a monetary value therefore could not be your token. There were some tokens that displayed "clothes" or "shoes"; these do not fit your token.

Your token may have something to do with those camps, possibly a memorial coin given to visitors long after the war - just a guess.

I also found a present day establishment claiming to be the only Japanese-Korea style arcade parlor in Texas. Their machines use tokens. I have not found an image of one of those tokens, but I mention this as a possible clue.

Wow, thanks to all for your information, insights and ideas.

I'm making a wild guess here, but I suspect it might be a token for a Texas Pachinko arcade in Japan, and was a momento brought back to this country by either a tourist or GI. (Pachinko is a very popular "pinball"-like game in Japan frequently used as an excuse for gambling.Think of a combo of pinball and slot machine.) The katakana syllabary at the top strongly indicates Japanese origin. The "Texas" name suggests it was an arcade that probably welcomed GIs and their dollars by giving them a small reminder of home. Just a theory, but it's the best I've got.

I'm thinking about the saguaro cactus ... does not grow in Texas. I don't think a Texas business or tour destination would approve a souvenir token with the Arizona state plant on it.

Jsutt's explanation makes sense ... a made in Japan "Texas" token could have all kinds of oddities. Because,if it in the "West", it has to have saguaros.

http://www.texas.jp/
(I love the internet!) The above link is to the website of Texas Pachinko in Japan. The photo of the sign I got from flickr taken by a Japanese back in 2010. There's no guarantee your token is from this business, and there's no way to determine how old your token is ... but the theory is at least possible. Personally, I think your token is really neat with all the cross cultural things happening on such a small surface.

Totally cool!

Totally believable. Thanks.

Is this token worth any money? Does anyone know