1 Penny - Thomas Stokes Melbourne, Victoria

Thomas Stokes operated as a manufacturing jeweller and importer on Collins Street, and his tradesman's tokens were among the most widely circulated private copper issues in colonial Victoria. The 1862 date places this squarely in the period when official British regal coinage remained chronically undersupplied in the Australian colonies, forcing merchants to commission their own tokens simply to make change. Stokes was unusually prolific — he issued tokens both for his own trade and struck them commercially for other Melbourne businesses, making his workshop one of the primary sources of private coinage in the colony.

The Andrews and Renniks references cite two distinct varieties for this issue, distinguished by minor die differences that collectors have long used to sequence the production runs.