1 Penny Union Bakery Co. - Christchurch

Union Bakery Company operated in Christchurch during the provincial token era of the 1870s, when small-denomination coinage was chronically short in New Zealand's South Island settlements. Trade tokens like this one filled a practical gap — bakers, butchers, and merchants issued their own copper to keep transactions moving. The Rooks catalogue reference R#559 places this piece firmly within the documented Canterbury issues, though surviving examples in anything above Fine are genuinely scarce given the heavy daily use these tokens saw in bread-counter exchanges.