1812 Canada Tiffin Halfpenny Token Trade & Navigation - 1/2 Penny Token Canada 1812 - 1812 Canadian Token

This listing is for the photographed 1812 "Tiffin" Half Penny Token. Relatively rare type of half penny token. 6 Dot variety. Nowhere in British North America did the private copper tokens issued by merchants and others have a more fascinating evolutionary history than in Lower Canada - now Quebec. In the 1820s and 1830s, trade in Montreal, the colony's commercial centre, created a strong demand for coinage. As coins were often in short supply, privately produced tokens filled the void. Tokens were not legal tender and their circulation was against the law. However, this was little deterrent at a time when legal coins were scarce. The first private coppers were heavy pieces, about the same weight as the penny and halfpenny coins they supplemented. However, by the 1830s the tokens were barely half the weight of the official coins and, at times, were so numerous that people would no longer accept them. Various tricks were therefore resorted to in order to make their circulation possible