Museum Notebook: When tokens were used currency in New Zealand

Two tokens held in the collection. The token on the top was issued by George McCaul, plumber, gasfitter and tinsmith. The token below was issued by J Hurley & Co, baker in Victoria Avenue. Whanganui Regional Museum Collection Ref: 1802.4191.17 and 1802.3815. Photo / Kathy Greensides

In the 1850s the British Empire, including New Zealand, saw a shortage of small coins.

There were two reasons. Firstly, the cost of shipping small denomination coins such as pennies and half-pennies to all the far-flung Empire countries was prohibitive.

Secondly, for emigrating settlers, weight and space on sailing ships was at a premium, so carrying paper money was more practical than coinage.

Businesses soon found that lower denominations needed for day-to-day trading were in short supply.

While some business owners offered credit, others would give change in the form of low value goods such as postage stamps and matches, rather than coins.

Another solution was for businesses to design and commission unique tokens which could only be redeemed at the issuer’s premises.

These proved to be so popular that by 1874 it is estimated half the copper coins in NZ were tradesmen’s tokens.

For business owners, tokens were a great advertising medium and also encouraged shoppers to return to the store. The disadvantage for customers was the inconvenience as they could not be used at any other business, and they became worthless if the issuer went out of business.

The Whanganui Regional Museum holds a collection of NZ tokens and there is always a story behind each one.

One token was from a Whanganui business, J Hurley & Company, which issued both penny and half-penny tokens. The token features a robed female figure sitting by a horn of plenty, with a beehive with sheaves of wheat and parcels in the background. A sailing vessel is visible, and the woman holds an anchor in one hand.

So, who was John Hurley? Hurley migrated to NZ from Scotland with his parents and siblings in 1842 at the age of 12. They settled in Wellington where his father, Alexander, ran a bakery on Lambton Quay.

In 1853 John moved to Wanganui and opened his own bakery in Victoria Avenue, the first in the town. His range of goods included bread, biscuits, confectionery and groceries. He supplied ships as well as selling for local consumption.

A studio portrait of Mr and Mrs J Hurley, bakers in Whanganui. Unknown photographer, undated. Whanganui Regional Museum Collection Ref: 1802.10861

An almanac advertisement from 1878 showed how John Hurley’s business had expanded.

As well as bread, biscuits and confectionery, he also listed wholesale and retail grocery and emphasised his ability to create wedding cakes. Hurley later built a much more substantial bakery, a two-storey, double-fronted wooden building with glass across the front, to display “confectionery goods and wedding ornaments to the left and shipping and grocery provisions to the right”.

Another striking token in the collection was issued by George McCaul in 1874. His coins depict a scene of the Poppet Head lookout tower, which was used during the gold rush to process mine tailings and hoist flags indicating that mail had arrived.

The scene also includes a building with a tall smoke chimney and a smaller steam pressure outlet, with two men working on the platform at the middle of the poppet head.

McCaul was a plumber, gasfitter, tinsmith and coppersmith, lured from Australia to NZ in 1861 by the promise of untold riches on the Otago goldfields.

Having little success in Hokitika he moved to Thames in 1868, a year after the goldfields opened, and made his money through his earlier trade producing pipes, chimneys and colonial ovens for other miners. It is interesting that although he never had luck in his mining venture, he depicted a gold field on his coins.

When a large supply of imperial coinage was brought to NZ in 1876, tokens were phased out of circulation. They are now much sought after by collectors and numismatists - coin, medal and paper money collectors - around the world.

* Kathy Greensides is collection assistant at Whanganui Regional Museum.