In the 1990s, the new merchant's store token is the payphone card. Basically, you buy payphone service in advance in the form of a debit card. Some cards are totally electronic, with a magnetic stripe like a charge card. Most phonecards are electro-mechanical, being punched by machinery in the payphone. American cards will most likely be of the first variety, all electronic.
Phone cards carry colorful pictures of tourist attractions, local festivals, monuments or sports.
They also carry advertising for other companies. Debit cards drive the copiers at Kinko's, a national chain of printshops common to college towns and business parks. Unlike phone cards which are disposable, Kinko's cards can be re-incremented by inserting the card and your cash into a machine at the store. The town of Ithaca, New York, has developed its own local currency. People there trade services in units of an hour.