QUERY: BALDWIN'S AUCTION 62 CEYLON PLANTATION TOKEN IMAGES SOUGHT

Kavan Ratnatunga of Sri Lanka writes:

The majority of the copper tokens were issued by Coffee Mills in Ceylon during the years when there was a dearth of small change prior to 1870. A minority were struck later until the early 1880's. When the decimal currency system was introduced in 1869 and coins expressed in cents or divisions came into circulation in 1872, the need for special tokens or tallies decreased and by the year 1890 the majority of the estates and firms were using the legal coin. No copper tokens were ever struck for the Government factories.

Coffee-Planting in Ceylon is described in article published in 1851 June by Harper's Magazine, New York.

In 1889, J. Atkins included 5 specimens in his list. In 1895, Lt. Col. B. Lowsley cataloged 43 in his monograph on the Coins and Tokens of Ceylon which appeared in the Numismatic Chronicle. In 1940 and 1945, Sidney K. Eastwood lists 47 in Numisma which was privately printed in Pittsburgh. In 1953 Scaife of Pittsburgh lists 65 in a series of articles in the ANA Numismatist. In 1961 Pridmore catalogs 120 of which the extra are mostly of local fabrication. Only about a dozen have mint dates. Mitchiner lists a subset of 15 pieces struck in well equipped mints in England or India and are listed below with a few more. The other dates give below are from published records if available.

Wayne Homren, Editor

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