I was out detecting today for a quick hour or two and found what I thought was a George V penny but when I got it home and cleaned some of the muck off it I found it was slightly older than that and not a penny at all. I had a bit of fun researching this and found that it is actually a half penny token issued by the British Copper Company. Which had smelting works at Landore, Wales, and rolling mills at Walthamstow, Essex.
Apparently, copper pennies and half pennies were in short supply after the war with Napoleon of France — and the war against America in 1812 — and the earlier coins had largely been melted down for their value as a metal. Nothing was done in parliament to alleviate the situation but Copper mines had an abundance of copper so they took it upon themselves to create tokens in penny and half penny denominations that could be used in place of the scarce ‘official’ pence. This went on for a few years, (1811-1814) and thus this can be considered somewhat unusual find despite its condition. I think this particular one has 1813 on it. You can barely make out the lion on the actual coin so I’ve included a pic of what it would look like in very fine condition.
