1/2 Penny - J. Macgregor Sydney, New South Wales

Macgregor operated as a tobacconist in Sydney, and like dozens of colonial traders in New South Wales during the 1860s, issued his own copper tokens to alleviate the chronic shortage of small British regal coinage reaching the colonies. The imperial mint supplied far too little low-denomination currency for a fast-growing commercial economy at the edge of empire, and tradesmen effectively filled the gap themselves.

Andrews 340 is among the better-documented of the Sydney merchant issues, cross-referenced consistently across the three major antipodean token catalogues — a degree of agreement that itself reflects how thoroughly this series has been studied since the 1960s.