Wellington Token

[Steiner]

The war of 1812 between Canada (Britain) and America continued on until 1815. British forces recently freed up from Napoleon?s defeat in Europe were redeployed to North America.

These tokens were originally produced for use as half pennies for Wellington?s army in Spain and Portugal and found there way over to the Americas in the kit and pockets of British soldiers.

At that time Canada relied on British currency which was always in limited supply. To supplement this US and Spanish coinage was used. Private tokens were issued also by merchants to keep the flow of cash going.

In 1825 a law was past in Canada banning all private coinage. Due to a loophole in the law those coins with dates 1825 and earlier were still acceptable as currency.

The Wellington Token was a prime candidate for forgery as many people knew of them but they were not extremely common in change. Various forgeries exist and were manufactured in Canada. Below is one example from my collection which I date to about 1830-40 but is stamped 1814.

Wellington token stayed in circulation within Canada until confederation in 1867. When colonial tokens were phased out and replaced with Dominion cents.

I think it pretty amazing that the Napoleonic era and the war of 1812 had such an impact on the currency Canadians used during the first half on the nineteenth century.

Steiner