1/2 Penny Currency F. McDermott

F. McDermott operated a general store in New Brunswick during the period when small-denomination colonial coinage was chronically undersupplied across British North America. Merchants routinely issued their own copper tokens to make change, a practice tolerated by colonial authorities who had no practical alternative. McDermott's pieces circulated locally as functional substitutes for official halfpennies, which were in perpetually short supply throughout the 1840s and into the early 1850s.

Breton catalogued this piece as #914, placing it firmly within the documented New Brunswick merchant token series.