1/2 Penny -Hurley, J. and Co. Wanganui

Hurley's token was issued during New Zealand's acute small-change shortage of the 1850s and 1860s, when the colonial government had neither the infrastructure nor the political will to supply adequate regal coinage to provincial towns. Wanganui merchants were left to solve the problem themselves. J. Hurley & Co. operated as a general trader, and tokens like this one circulated as genuine transactional currency rather than as promotional novelties — shopkeepers depended on them to make change.

The Andrews and Renniks references place this among the better-documented provincial issues, though surviving examples in collectible condition are not plentiful given the hard daily use these pieces saw on the colonial frontier.