1 Penny - Robison Bros and Co Melbourne, Victoria

Robison Bros & Co operated as a wholesale and retail ironmongery and general hardware merchant in Melbourne during the colonial boom that followed the Victorian gold rush. Trade tokens of this kind proliferated across Victoria in the late 1850s and early 1860s because the colonial government had failed to supply sufficient small change — the British penny arrived sporadically and in quantities wholly inadequate for a rapidly urbanising population flush with goldfield money.

The Andrews, Renniks, and Gray references all catalogue this piece, with Gray's 241a designation suggesting a die variety distinction within the broader type. Most Victorian copper trade tokens were struck in Birmingham by firms including Heaton's mint.