Einige Informationen über Britische Token des 19. Jh.
EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY COPPER TOKENS
ISSUES MAINLY OF 1811-1815.
THE large issue of "Cartwheel" pennies and twopences in 1797 had put an end to the spate of private tokens issued towards the end of the eighteenth Century. These large unwieldy coins were struck for one year only but were followed in 1799 by a new issue of halfpennies and farthings. From this date until 1821 no copper coins were struck at all except in the years 1806 and 1807. The reason for this was the gradual rise in the price of copper. The "cartwheel" coins had been manufactured at a time when the price of copper was £105 a ton and they contained almost their füll face value of metal. By 1808 the price of copper was in the region of £200 per ton and great quantities of copper coin had been illegally melted down at a handsome profit to the smelters. This resulted in a chronic shortage of small change, especially in the Midlands and North where new industries and factories were springing up following the advent of steam-power, and where there was not enough coin available to pay the weekly wages of the growing population of industrial workers. The public repeatedly peti-tioned for a new issue of copper coins, but äs Parliament would not or could not take the necessary steps to deal with the Situation there was a growing demand for private tokens to remedy the deficiency.
Some of the earliest nineteenth Century tokens were worn George II or George III halfpennies (many of them forgeries) and eighteenth Century tokens privately re-issued with a counter-mark stamped on them giving the name of the issuer. By 1811 such was the demand that manufacturers, centred chiefly in Birmingham, began striking tokens for factory owners and tradesmen all over the country, and even for such institutions äs the Birmingham Workhouse.
The tokens themselves are of various designs and, unlike the eighteenth Century issues, there were more pennies struck than halfpennies. These often have the promise to pay "a pound note for 240 tokens" äs part of their inscription. They were very large and sometimes followed the style of the "cartwheel" pennies e.g. shops and factories. Some of these tokens present an interest-ing pictorial record of machinery used in the early days of the industrial revolution.
The government, recognising the necessity of this private currency at a time when the high price of copper prevented an official issue of small change, did nothing to prevent their circu-lation, but when certain rogues issued tokens and then refused to redeem them in Bank of England money it became necessary to put a stop to them and in 1817 an Act of Parliament declared them illegal. This Act, however, expressly allowed the penny tokens of the Birmingham Workhouse and Sheffield Overseers of the Poor to remain current until 1820 and 1823 respectively.
The Standard work of reference for this series is: DAVIS, W. J. The Nineteenth Century Token Coinage. London, 1904.
Mein Penny Token ist nicht so gut erhalten, daher zur Kompensierung den Halfpenny Token:
