1/2 Penny The Illustrious Wellington - Waterloo

Issued in the year following Waterloo, this token was one of dozens of privately struck copper pieces flooding Lower Canada's chronic small-change vacuum. The merchant and banking establishment there had long relied on tokens because official British coinage rarely made it into circulation in sufficient quantities. Wellington's victory provided an obvious commercial hook for token issuers, and several competing varieties appeared within months of the battle.

Breton 981 is among the more common of the Wellington token series in Lower Canada, though survivors in sharp condition are harder to locate than raw numbers suggest — heavy commercial use was the norm.