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QUERY: '1915' HUDSON BAY COMPANY TOKEN
Duane Feisel submitted this question about an unusual Hudson Bay Company token. Can anyone help?
-Editor
The above photo is of one of the items consigned to my next mail bid sale coming up in September. Although the incused lettering style is very much like other known Hudson Bay Company tokens, this specific one does not appear to have been discovered previously. It is made of aluminum (like other known HBC tokens), all inscriptions are incuse, and the size is 32mm. The obverse is very well done, and appears genuine enough. The stamping on the reverse, however, seems to have been done by hand. I just wonder if that 1915 stamping could somehow relate to this event. I’ve tried many different sources and contacted other collectors for information but have not found anything else.
in 1915, the Hudson’s Bay Company closed, for good, its old “Fort George” trading post near the junction of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers. A fixture in the area for almost 110 years, the post was a catalyst behind the eventual development of the Prince George area. Its four walls stood witness to a century’s worth of history as northern British Columbia slowly opened to the outside world. The Fort George post was originally established in 1807 by explorer Simon Fraser as he charted fur trade routes for the North West Company. Named after King George III (the reigning monarch of the time), the post remained largely isolated and unchanged for almost 100 years, its officers quietly serving the stream of hardy trappers, traders, natives, prospectors, outfitters, settlers and other parties who passed through the area. By the end of 1914, the railway was up and running and the new townsite of Prince George was growing by leaps and bounds. With the fur trade dwindling, water-based travel declining, and the Hudson’s Bay Company channelling resources into its growing chain of department stores, Company officials decided to pull the plug on the old Fort George trading post.
To read the complete article, see:
April 10, 1915 – Fort George trading post closes doors after over a century of service
(facesplacesnorth.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/april-10-1915-fort-george-trading-post-closes-doors-after-over-a-century-of-service/)
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