1 Penny - I. Friedman Hobart, Tasmania

Friedman's penny is one of several merchant tokens struck for Hobart traders in the 1850s, a decade when chronic shortages of official British coinage in the Australian colonies forced shopkeepers to commission their own copper. I. Friedman — almost certainly a retailer operating in Hobart's commercial district — would have distributed these as functional change, redeemable at his own premises. The multiple die varieties catalogued under Andrews 133–136 suggest more than one batch was ordered, possibly from different Birmingham diesinkers, which was the standard supply route for colonial merchant tokens of this period.