1 Cent - Talbot Allum and Lee

Talbot, Allum & Lee were New York importers of hardware and dry goods who commissioned these tokens in England — almost certainly at the Boulton & Watt Soho Mint in Birmingham — to address the chronic small-change shortage plaguing American commerce in the years following independence. Congress had authorized a federal mint in 1792, but production lagged badly, and private merchants routinely filled the gap with trade tokens that circulated on public trust alone. New York's port economy was particularly cash-starved at the retail level.

The federal government eventually taxed these tokens out of circulation. A surviving letter documents the firm's frustration with unsold inventory as late as 1796.