BL-6A2 Blacksmith Token Brass ICCS Certified EF-40 *RARE*

BL-6A2 Blacksmith Token Brass ICCS Certified EF-40

According to McLachlan, in about 1835, a blacksmith in Montreal began to make his own halfpennies to pay for liquor. He made counterfeits of the battered, worn-out, old English and Irish regal halfpennies of George III. His dies were purposely left unfinished in order to create the appearance of a badly worn token. His halfpennies were then artificially darkened, probably by overheating, to create the illusion of age. Only a crude outline of the type was cut, without a date or legend. A peculiarity of these pieces is that the types are almost always reversed because the die-sinkers cut the types on the dies to face the same way as on the tokens they used as models. These pieces were accepted in trade because of the insatiable demand for small change in Lower Canada at the time, particularly in Montreal.

BL-6A2 Variety:
Obverse: Laureate bust of George III, from a rusted die.
Reverse: Britannia seated right, with fine lines resembling water below.

Specifications:
Composition: Brass
Weight: 3.5 to 7.1 g
Diameter: 27.3 mm
Die Axis: ↑↓
Edge: Plain
Alternate Reference: WO-8