1/2 Penny Gloucestershire - Badminton

Badminton House in Gloucestershire was the seat of the Dukes of Beaufort, and this token was issued during the great copper token boom of the 1790s — a direct consequence of the Royal Mint's near-complete failure to produce adequate small change for an industrializing economy. Private merchants and landowners filled the void. The Beaufort connection gives this piece a distinctly aristocratic provenance unusual among provincial tokens, most of which were commercial in origin.

DH#35 in Dalton and Hamer's reference remains the standard attribution for this type.