1/2 Penny - Crombie, Clapperton and Findlay Melbourne, Victoria

Crombie, Clapperton & Findlay operated as wholesale and retail drapers in Melbourne during the gold rush years, when the colonial government's chronic failure to supply adequate small change left merchants issuing their own tradesman's tokens out of sheer commercial necessity. The Victorian goldrush had flooded the colony with raw metal and newly wealthy diggers, yet halfpenny-sized transactions remained nearly impossible without private substitutes.

The token series catalogued under Andrews #84 belongs to one of the more short-lived mercantile partnerships of the period — the firm dissolved well before the imperial authorities finally cracked down on private token issue in the late 1850s.