UK (Great Britain) Tokens

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UK (Great Britain) Tokens.

18th and 19th Century tokens were issued as an equivalent to coins issued by the Country or Kingdom's mints. They are usually "good for the value of" an amount equal to a commonly traded coin, such as a penny or half penny. In the UK these were usually issued when the official circulating currency was in a poor state and private companies decided to take matters into their own hands.

These private companies issued them as tokens, to avoid treasonous forgeries, for use in the local economy. This was largely due to the use of Copper for the official coinage which was soft and rapidly wore down and received damage.

The War with France at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century caused many copper coins of the realm to be melted down as the metal became more valuable than the coins. The population were desperate for lower denomination coinage to carry on with their day to day lives.

In 1787, The Parys Copper Mine, Anglesey had the brilliant idea of minting tokens from their own mined copper. These tokens were immediately used within the local economy as a substitute for Pennies and Half Pennies. As word of this idea spread, more and more companies and merchants started to produce copper tokens with most towns having a few types of their own.