1/2 Penny Warwickshire - Birmingham

This is one of the Kempson & Russell issues struck at Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham — the same facility that would soon produce the official 1797 Cartwheel coinage for the Crown. By 1793, small change was so chronically short in Britain that merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen were commissioning their own copper tokens in enormous volumes, effectively running a parallel monetary system that the government was either unable or unwilling to replace. Boulton's operation gave provincial issuers access to edge-lettering machinery and die quality that the Royal Mint itself couldn't match at the time.