1/2 Penny Wiltshire - Devizes / J. Baster

Devizes, a market town in Wiltshire, saw a surge of provincial token issues in the 1790s when a chronic shortage of regal copper coinage left tradesmen unable to make change. J. Baster's halfpenny belongs to that wave — privately issued to facilitate small commerce at a moment when the Royal Mint had effectively abandoned low-denomination production for over a decade. The Tenth Report of the Committee on Coin (1787) had acknowledged the crisis years earlier, yet Parliament moved slowly enough that merchants like Baster were still filling the void nearly a decade later.