1 Puffin - Martin Coles Harman

Martin Coles Harman purchased Lundy Island in 1925 and almost immediately set about running it as a personal fiefdom, issuing these bronze puffins and half-puffins in 1929 as the island's official currency. The British government took a dim view of this. Harman was prosecuted under the Coinage Act 1870 and convicted in 1931, fined £5 plus costs — a verdict that effectively ended Lundy's monetary independence before it had properly begun.

The puffin denomination was pegged at a penny sterling, making the coinage functional rather than merely novelty. Surviving examples saw genuine circulation among the island's small resident population and visiting day-trippers before the conviction rendered them legally untenable.