1/2 Penny Middlesex - Slave

Issued during the height of the British abolitionist movement, this Middlesex halfpenny token was produced by private merchants filling a chronic shortage of regal copper coinage — the Royal Mint had struck virtually no halfpennies or farthings for general circulation since the 1770s. The design was explicitly abolitionist in intent, circulating as a piece of everyday commerce that doubled as a political statement at a moment when Wilberforce's campaign was actively lobbying Parliament.

Dalton and Hamer's cataloguing of this piece as DH#1037 places it among dozens of documented die varieties in the Middlesex series, where private issuers frequently recycled or modified dies.