1/2 Penny Warwickshire - Wilkinson / Forge

John Wilkinson issued these tokens because he had to. His ironworks at Bradley, Bilston, and Bersham employed thousands of men, and the chronic shortage of regal small change in the 1790s made paying wages a logistical nightmare. Wilkinson had already pioneered the use of the Boulton & Watt steam engine in his furnaces; commissioning Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint to strike his own copper was a characteristically direct solution.

Wilkinson tokens circulated well beyond his own workforce, accepted widely across the Black Country. The DH#389 attribution places this among the second series of his issues, distinguishable from the earlier 1787 pieces by die workmanship and edge treatment.