1/2 Penny Middlesex - Freedom with innocence / Rule Britannia

This is an 18th-century British trade token, not a government issue. During the 1780s and 1790s, the Royal Mint's near-total failure to produce adequate small-denomination copper coinage created a vacuum that private merchants, industrialists, and entrepreneurs filled themselves. The resulting "Conder tokens" — named after James Conder, who catalogued them — circulated legally and practically throughout Britain. Davison & Newman's DH#1042 is one of hundreds of Middlesex-attributed pieces struck by commercial diesinkers, most concentrated around the Soho Mint and London trade networks.