The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 33, August 17, 2003, Article 10

CONVICT LOVE TOKENS?

  While searching for a web site to feature, I came across a
  reference to the following book: "Convict Love Tokens : The
  Leaden Hearts the Convicts Left Behind,"  edited by Michele
  Field and Timothy Millett. Kent Town, S. Aust. : Wakefield
  Press, 1998.

  Interesting topic - a cross between love tokens and prison
  tokens.  Has anyone seen the book?   A subsequent web
  search located a December 1998 story about a British
  Museum exhibit of author Millett's collection:

  "AN EXTRAORDINARY collection of love tokens
  engraved by convicted Britons as farewell mementoes to
  loved ones before they were transported to Australia are to
  be exhibited in London.

  Timothy Millett, a leading numismatist who has built up the
  collection since 1984, is lending it to the British Museum on
  January 13. He described the tokens as "the leaden hearts
  the convicts left behind". Most were sentenced for offences
  as petty as stealing a ribbon.

  The tokens were scratched in prison cells on to the
  smoothed-out surface of copper pennies, just 36mm in
  circumference. Intended for sweethearts and family
  members, they carry poignant messages heavy with despair."

  http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/AUS-Tasmania/1998-12/0914985132

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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