I. Booth was an ironmonger operating in Melbourne during the gold rush years, when the colonial mint could not produce small-denomination coinage fast enough to meet the demands of a population that had roughly tripled in under five years. Tradesmen's tokens filled the vacuum entirely by private necessity, not official sanction. The Andrews, Roper, and Gray references all catalogue this piece, reflecting how seriously Australian numismatists have documented the token series — the colonial token literature is among the most exhaustively cross-referenced in the anglophone world.
The KM#Tn23 assignment came considerably later, as Krause worked to incorporate Australian tradesman tokens into a standardized framework not originally designed for them.
I. Booth was an ironmonger operating in Melbourne during the gold rush years, when the colonial mint could not produce small-denomination coinage fast enough to meet the demands of a population that had roughly tripled in under five years. Tradesmen's tokens filled the vacuum entirely by private necessity, not official sanction. The Andrews, Roper, and Gray references all catalogue this piece, reflecting how seriously Australian numismatists have documented the token series — the colonial token literature is among the most exhaustively cross-referenced in the anglophone world.
The KM#Tn23 assignment came considerably later, as Krause worked to incorporate Australian tradesman tokens into a standardized framework not originally designed for them.