1 Penny - Victoria United Service Hotel, Auckland

New Zealand had no domestic coinage until 1933, leaving the colony dependent on British coin and a patchwork of privately issued tradesman's tokens to meet everyday demand for small change. The United Service Hotel in Auckland issued this penny token during that gap — a practical solution to chronic shortages of low-denomination copper in the 1870s. Such tokens circulated freely among local businesses, accepted largely on trust in the issuer's solvency.

The Renniks reference number places this among a well-documented but genuinely scarce class of Australasian merchant tokens, few of which survived in quantity once official coinage eventually superseded them.