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1/2 Penny Seated Justice
| Issuer | Lower Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1820 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | Laureate and draped bust of George III facing right, rendered in low relief within an inner beaded border. The effigy displays the king's characteristic aged portrait with laurel wreath and truncated drapery at the shoulder. The date 1820 appears in the exergue below the bust, with a plain field surrounding the portrait. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Allegorical figure of Justice seated to the left upon a plinth, draped in classical robes. Her outstretched left arm holds a balance scale, while her right arm rests upon a fasces or similar attribute. The composition is set within a plain field bordered by a continuous beaded outer rim, with a raised horizontal ground line beneath the figure. No legend or inscription appears on this die. |
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| Additional information |
Lower Canada never had formal authority to issue its own coinage — these tokens circulated because the colonial government in London consistently failed to supply adequate small change, leaving merchants and banks to fill the void privately. The Seated Justice halfpenny belongs to a wave of bank and merchant tokens that flooded the colony in the early nineteenth century, tolerated rather than sanctioned by the crown.
Breton 1011 is among the better-documented pieces in the Lower Canada token series, with specimens appearing regularly in Canadian collection dispersals since the late 1800s.