1/2 Penny - George IV

Nova Scotia's copper halfpenny issue of this period was authorized to address a chronic small-change shortage that plagued British North American colonies throughout the early nineteenth century — imperial coinage rarely reached the colonies in sufficient quantity, and local merchants had long relied on a chaotic mix of tokens and foreign copper. The Province of Nova Scotia contracted production through Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham, the same facility responsible for the famous Cartwheel coinage of 1797.

Breton 867 is among the more frequently encountered of the early Nova Scotia provincial issues, suggesting reasonably robust original mintage across the decade-long run.