5 Сents - Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company tokens of this type were issued for use at remote trading posts across northern Canada, where Dominion coinage was scarce and inconvenient for the barter-adjacent economy of the fur trade. The aluminium composition chosen for the 1946 issue reflects wartime and postwar metal priorities — by 1946, HBC was adapting to a supply environment still shaped by strategic metal controls. These circulated as genuine trade currency within the company's own network, accepted for goods at the post store rather than redeemable through any government authority.

Gingras 285 is among the later aluminium issues before the company wound down its token programme entirely.