The Cocos (Keeling) Islands operated a genuine local currency — the plastic token coinage issued under the Clunies-Ross family, who governed the atoll as a private fiefdom until the Australian government effectively ended that arrangement in 1978. Those original tokens are legitimate issues. This 2004 brass piece, catalogued under Krause's "X" prefix for non-circulating fantasy strikes, has no connection to that currency system and was never sanctioned for local use. The X# designation is the catalog's polite way of flagging pieces produced outside any recognized issuing authority.
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands operated a genuine local currency — the plastic token coinage issued under the Clunies-Ross family, who governed the atoll as a private fiefdom until the Australian government effectively ended that arrangement in 1978. Those original tokens are legitimate issues. This 2004 brass piece, catalogued under Krause's "X" prefix for non-circulating fantasy strikes, has no connection to that currency system and was never sanctioned for local use. The X# designation is the catalog's polite way of flagging pieces produced outside any recognized issuing authority.