Lesslie and Sons operated a general store and later a penny post service in York (now Toronto), Upper Canada, making them one of the more commercially diversified token issuers in the province. The 1822 date places this piece in the thick of Upper Canada's chronic small-change shortage, a problem severe enough that merchants routinely commissioned private copper tokens simply to make transactions possible. The Lesslie family's token circulation was genuine — these were working coins, not vanity issues.
Lesslie and Sons operated a general store and later a penny post service in York (now Toronto), Upper Canada, making them one of the more commercially diversified token issuers in the province. The 1822 date places this piece in the thick of Upper Canada's chronic small-change shortage, a problem severe enough that merchants routinely commissioned private copper tokens simply to make transactions possible. The Lesslie family's token circulation was genuine — these were working coins, not vanity issues.