1 Penny - Murray & Christie - Advance Victoria Mule Castlemaine, Victoria

Murray & Christie operated a general store in Castlemaine during the peak of the Victorian goldfields era, issuing tradesman's tokens as a practical solution to the chronic small-change shortage that plagued colonial Victoria throughout the 1850s and 1860s. This piece is a mule — struck from dies that were not originally paired — combining the Murray & Christie obverse with the "Advance Victoria" reverse die used across multiple issuers, a common enough practice among the small number of Birmingham die-cutters supplying the Australian token trade.

The Andrews, Renniks, and Gray references all catalog it separately, reflecting genuine collector interest in die-pairing anomalies within this series.