Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Penny Wholesale and Retail Hardware Store
| Issuer | W.A. & S. Black (Halifax, Nova Scotia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1816 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | 25.5 mm |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Central device depicting a multi-storey commercial building facade with multiple windows arranged in rows, rendered in low relief within the coin field. A circular legend surrounds the building reading WHOLESALE & RETAIL HARDWARE STORE, with the date 1816 inscribed in the exergue below the structure. The design is characteristic of early 19th-century Canadian merchant token engraving. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The Black brothers operated one of Halifax's more established hardware concerns in the early nineteenth century, issuing this token during a period when small change was genuinely hard to find in British North America. The Royal Mint supplied coins erratically, and colonial merchants routinely filled the gap themselves — legally tolerated, if never formally sanctioned. W.A. & S. Black's token circulated alongside a chaotic mix of other merchant pieces, counterfeit halfpence, and worn British copper that Halifax's economy absorbed without much discrimination.
The Breton 893 attribution places it firmly within the documented Nova Scotia merchant token series. The CCT NS-15B designation reflects at least one catalogued variety distinction within the type.