The video coin holder was perhaps the dorkiest accessory ever made. This little fashion disaster was designed for the "fashion-conscious" arcade game enthusiast. It was basically a little clear plastic tube that clipped onto your belt, and held 36 quarters.

The idea behind the product was for it to provide a place to keep your quarters besides those ever-so-tight early 80s blue jeans. It was effective for that purpose. But it was far more effective at repelling any and all members of the opposite sex, by letting them know that you were so into Donkey Kong that you went out and bought a little plastic coin holder.

This little blunder was available in six colors; Galactic Red, Electric Blue, Lunar Lavendar, Cosmic Black, Military Camo and Orbit Green. It appears that the opposite sex repulsion effect worked equally well with all colors. These were available via mail order from Nicoletti Productions for $7.95 back in 1983.

Aladdin's Castle soon came out with their own coin holder which had a much lower dorkage factor. Their holder was an opaque plastic tube that was worn around the neck on a shoelace. It came free when you bought enough tokens. I had several of these back in the day. The necklace design, along with the fact that they were free, served to minimize the opposite sex repulsion factor. Mainly because almost everybody at Aladdin's Castle had one. These were not to be worn anywhere else though. I was really excited about mine, and wore it to school, and almost got laughed out of the third grade.

I haven't seen anything similar to these two products in a long time. It seems that modern arcades have switched over to either "power card" systems, or games that cost $1 per play, neither of which require the players to look stupid by wearing some sort of coin caddy. But the modern arcade does allow players to look stupid in entirely different ways, but that is a story for another time.