Australian trader's tokens (1849 - 1874)

What happened to the listing of the Australian trader's tokens issued from 1849 to 1874?

A partially completed listing was previously included in the catalogue - these have recently been removed???

There are quite a few - the numbers of basic types for each state:

New South Wales - 56
South Australia - 10
Tasmania - 33
Vistoria - 92
Western Australia - 3

Apparently they were moved to *Tokens* by the Australia referee...

Although they were advertising pieces, they were legal tender for a while due to the shortage of copper.

I think they should stay as part of the Australian coins - ie similar to New Zealand - the trader's tokens are a very interesting part of Australia's numismatic history

I agree. I was the one that got the NZ tokens section up and running and I've been steadily entering the tokens as I've had time. I even managed to get permission from Renniks Publishers, who do the definitive catalogue on New Zealand and Australian traders tokens, to use as many images from their catalogue as I liked.

The Australian referee is new and perhaps they don't understand how important those tokens were to the Australian history. They circulated as regular currency due to a shortage of small denomination coins in the country at the time, so they deserve as place in the Australian catalogue as much as the New Zealand trade tokens or the UK Conder tokens.

I thought it was the red line - being legal tender, even for some time in the whole state. It is not?

Yes they should be listed in Australia

They were a semi-legal tender. They weren't officially recognised by the government, but they were accepted by merchants and customers, because there simply wasn't enough official low denomination coins to cover day to day transactions. I think it was because when people came over on ships from England, they had limited space, so it was easier to bring silver and gold coins, but not really worth it to carry large weights of low denomination copper.

Hi, sorry for any inconveniences. I have temporarily moved them out so I can rearrange and fix up parts of the catalogue. I was planning to bring up this issue latter of where these tokens should be placed in the catalogue. My opinion is that they should stay in the tokens section because of multiple reasons. But my plan is to see what the Numista community thinks is right before any real deception on this topic is made.

Because they circulated as currency and were accepted by both traders and consumers, they should be part of the Australian catalogue,

much like the UK Conder tokens


and the New Zealand Trade tokens

Most are made to the large pre-1860 penny size - ie pre 1860 a 1 penny coin had to have 1 penny worth of copper - this may have been contributed to their acceptability as currency

- they are quite distinct from other tokens like bread tokens, ferry tokens, amusement park tokens and the like