1. A computer system providing a computerized token identification system using tokens generated by said computer system for uniquely representing a plurality of items, said computer system comprising: a plurality of unique tokens; computer generation means for generating one of said plurality of unique tokens; computer assignment means for associating said one of said plurality of unique tokens with an item; computer recognition means for recognizing said one of said plurality of unique tokens; and computer identification means for identifying the item associated with said one of said plurality of unique tokens, wherein each of said plurality of unique tokens comprises: a delimiter field containing a token recognition character; a version field following the delimiter field containing a version string of at least one character, identifying a unique token version; and a variable field adjacent said version field, containing a variable string of at least one character, conforming to a format specification for said unique token version, each variable string being unique for a unique token version.