1 Penny - Iredale and Co. - Britannia Sydney, New South Wales

Iredale & Co. was a Sydney ironmongery and general hardware merchant operating in the mid-nineteenth century, and like many colonial businesses of the 1850s and 1860s, issued its own copper trade token to address the chronic shortage of small change in New South Wales before a reliable supply of imperial coinage reached the colony in sufficient quantity. These merchant tokens circulated alongside official currency by informal consent rather than legal sanction — tolerated, not approved.

Andrews 291 is among the better-documented Sydney merchant pieces, cross-referenced consistently across the three major Australian token catalogues without significant attribution disputes. The Britannia type was a deliberate choice signaling commercial legitimacy to a colonial population still strongly oriented toward Britain.