1/2 Penny T.S. Brown and Co

T.S. Brown & Co. was a Montreal hardware merchant that issued this token during the chronic small-change shortage that plagued Lower Canada in the early 1830s. Colonial authorities had long failed to supply adequate copper coinage, leaving merchants to fill the gap themselves. Brown's firm was one of several Montreal traders who commissioned tokens struck in Britain — almost certainly by a Birmingham manufacturer — and imported them as a practical fix for daily retail transactions.

Breton 561 is reasonably well documented within the Lower Canada token series, though the merchant itself left little historical footprint beyond the token bearing its name.