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 Penny - George McCaul Grahamstown
| Issuer | George McCaul |
|---|---|
| Year | 1874 |
| Type | Emergency coin |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | ADVANCE THAMES GOLDFIELDS |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | • • N • E • W • • George McCaul COPPERSMITH 18 TINSMITH 74 PLUMBER AND GASFITTER Grahamstown • • Z • E • A • L • A • N • D • • |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
George McCaul operated a general merchant business in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape during the 1870s, a period when small-denomination coinage was chronically short in South African colonial towns distant from Cape Town. Traders routinely filled the gap with privately issued tokens, which circulated on the strength of the issuer's local reputation rather than any government authority. McCaul's penny is among the heavier examples of the type, suggesting an attempt to confer credibility through honest weight rather than cut corners on metal.
Andrews #359 places this within a well-documented sequence of Cape Colony merchant tokens, most struck in Birmingham by prolific token manufacturers supplying the colonial trade.