1/2 Penny Middlesex - Freemasons

This is one of hundreds of provincial halfpenny tokens struck during the 1787–1797 "token age," when chronic Royal Mint neglect left Britain's copper coinage so debased and counterfeited that merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen began issuing their own. The Freemasons series from Middlesex was produced commercially — not by any lodge — to satisfy collector demand, a practice openly acknowledged at the time. These "evasion" and speculative pieces circulated alongside genuine trade tokens but were never tied to a specific issuing merchant.

Draper's DH#372 is among the better-documented varieties in the Middlesex sequence.