The Risca Union Copper Company operated collieries in Monmouthshire, and like scores of Welsh industrial concerns during the acute small-change shortage of the Napoleonic wars, it issued its own copper tokens to pay workers who had little access to legitimate Royal Mint coinage. The 1811 date places this squarely in the final wave of provincial token production before the Coinage Act of 1816 suppressed private issues and restored centralised minting.
Davis 57 is the standard reference for this type; Withers 288 provides die attribution detail that separates it from superficially similar Monmouthshire issues of the same period.
The Risca Union Copper Company operated collieries in Monmouthshire, and like scores of Welsh industrial concerns during the acute small-change shortage of the Napoleonic wars, it issued its own copper tokens to pay workers who had little access to legitimate Royal Mint coinage. The 1811 date places this squarely in the final wave of provincial token production before the Coinage Act of 1816 suppressed private issues and restored centralised minting.
Davis 57 is the standard reference for this type; Withers 288 provides die attribution detail that separates it from superficially similar Monmouthshire issues of the same period.