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1/2 Penny Sir Isaac Brock

Issuer Upper Canada
Year 1812
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Currency Pound
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Obverse lettering SUCCESS TO THE COMMERCE OF UPPR & LOWR CANADA .
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Reverse script Latin
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Additional information

Isaac Brock died at Queenston Heights in October 1812, killed by a sniper's bullet during one of the decisive engagements of the War of 1812. These copper tokens were not government issue — they circulated as merchant tokens to address the chronic small-change shortage that plagued Upper Canada throughout the early nineteenth century, a problem the colonial administration persistently failed to solve through official coinage. The timing of Brock's death made his face commercially useful almost immediately; his battlefield death elevated him to hero status in British Canada within weeks.

Breton 723 is the standard attribution, though die-struck varieties exist with differing edge treatments.