1 Penny British Colonies

This piece belongs to a category of semi-official colonial copper that circulated in the absence of any coordinated British North American coinage policy. London showed little urgency in supplying the provinces with small change, leaving merchants and local authorities to commission their own tokens — many struck in Birmingham by firms like Boulton & Watt's successors or Soho imitators working on private account. The 1825 date places this squarely in the period before the provincial legislatures began asserting tighter control over token issues.

The Breton 993 reference situates it within the broader Canadian token series documented by Pierre-Napoléon Breton in his 1894 catalogue, still the foundational reference for this collecting area.