1 Penny - De Carle, E. and Co. Dunedin

E. De Carle & Co. operated as an ironmongery and general hardware merchant in Dunedin during the Otago gold rush years, when the colony's chronic shortage of official small change forced tradespeople to issue their own copper tokens. New Zealand had no domestic mint, and imported British coin was perpetually insufficient for retail transactions in a boomtown economy. De Carle's tokens circulated alongside dozens of other merchant issues from the same period, all filling the same gap. The multiple die varieties catalogued under this issue — at least three distinct types — suggest the tokens were struck in more than one production run, likely as demand repeatedly outpaced supply.