1 Sou Molson Breweries

Molson's 1837 copper token belongs to the wave of private and bank-issued tokens that flooded Lower Canada after the imperial government's chronic failure to supply adequate small change. The Legislative Assembly had repeatedly petitioned for relief; what arrived instead was a chaotic mix of private issues, many of dubious weight and fineness. Molson — already established as one of Montreal's most prominent commercial names through the brewery founded in 1786 — issued these tokens partly as a practical solution and partly as a form of institutional advertising.

Breton 562 is among the better-documented of the merchant tokens from this period, with reasonably consistent copper weight across surviving examples.