Jno. Andrew & Co. operated as a wholesale and retail ironmonger in Melbourne during the early 1860s, a period when acute small-change shortages across the Australian colonies drove hundreds of private traders to commission their own copper tokens. The Colonial government had neither the infrastructure nor the political will to supply sufficient low-denomination coinage, leaving commerce to fill the gap through tradesmen's tokens — a practice tolerated until the Queensland and Victorian token acts of the late 1860s effectively ended private issue.
Gray #12 is among the better-documented Melbourne ironmonger tokens, with die links traceable to the prolific Birmingham trade token producers supplying the Australian market at this time.
Jno. Andrew & Co. operated as a wholesale and retail ironmonger in Melbourne during the early 1860s, a period when acute small-change shortages across the Australian colonies drove hundreds of private traders to commission their own copper tokens. The Colonial government had neither the infrastructure nor the political will to supply sufficient low-denomination coinage, leaving commerce to fill the gap through tradesmen's tokens — a practice tolerated until the Queensland and Victorian token acts of the late 1860s effectively ended private issue.
Gray #12 is among the better-documented Melbourne ironmonger tokens, with die links traceable to the prolific Birmingham trade token producers supplying the Australian market at this time.