Tokens And Special Purpose Coins Of New Zealand

An impressive show with plenty to digest. Worth viewing again.

Soon, I hope. Things will be normal soon. Trying to be an optimist.

Very nice!

Somerville 1857 Family Grocer Token 1857.


Somerville token reverse - M. SOMERVILLE, WHOLESALE, FAMILY GROCER, CITY MART, AUCKLAND,


Obverse, a sprig of flowers including a rose, thistle and various clovers. Indicating the allegories of England, Scotland and Ireland, with words "NEW ZEALAND 1857"

This is easily one of our most interesting tokens for several reasons. It is one of the very oldest being from 1857 and easily one of the most common. Most are found in heavily worn condition and were likely used for years.

This is a penny token made out of copper, 34mm in size and made by an unknown British mint, like all the earliest tokens very little is known about Mark Somerville (Sometimes spelled with 2 m's) and the most we know was he was a Grocer who was in a long forgotten building called the City Mart (Like a 2 storey wooden shack with sash windows) that was in central Auckland. Also that he was a grocer for years and died in 1902 meaning he must have been pretty young when these coins were issued.

Roker mentions he was trading as early as 1850 and broke up his partnership with a Mr McCutcheon then and his store was in a prominent corner in Auckland in which distances from Auckland were measured from. He sold the store to Walter Graham around 1880.

Wholesale grocers would have sold all the usual foodstuffs and also clothing, building supplies and everything needed for the colonists. He likely would have bartered or brought fresh produce and meat off Maori and Colonist farmers and hunters.

As each ship came into Auckland, Somerville along with others would have brought ships cargos and then sold them in his shop, often taking out ads in the paper with lines like "Just landed, 100 x finest women's kerchiefs, several fine sets of crockery, 6 gross of fine glass jars, 1200 yards of good sackcloth, gallons of sperm whale oil" etc.

He would have no doubt competed with many other marts and stores, but would have edge probably selling essentials like vegetables, meat, oats, sugar and lard.

The coins are very common and historic, it is crude by later standards with an allegory referring to British unity rather than anything New Zealand related. In 1857 it was still a frontier of Englishness in a hostile environment. Auckland would have been a town of around 5 to 8,000 people and surrounded by some hinter land.

I can not find any images of clues where his grocery store or the "City Mart" stood, its likely he moved around and such a building could have burnt down back in the 1860s.

My coin is Fine to goodFine, the flowers always appear worn and this coin is mostly found in VG or worse condition. It is special too as its so old and really the earliest coin of any description specifically for New Zealand use.

There are several varieties of it, based around the length of the word Wholesale ranging in 3 sizes, mine is the 2nd and less common one. The scarce coin is where its shorter still. The other varieties feature where the thistle stalk points to the letters of NEW ZEALAND.

He also suggests (Roker) that the coin was made by Stokes and Co in Melbourne (Possibly for later restrikes, as all of these very early copper tokens with varieties may have been restruck several times).

Great examples and excellent background history.

Very nice!

Sorry I kind of forgot about this, here goes... (Darn Proof British Florins, beautiful banknotes and rare Fijian coins!)

H. Ashton Penny Token 1863


Reverse - "H. Ashton, Importer, of, Haberdashery, & Tailors, Trimmings, Queen St. Auckland"


Obverse - "New Zealand, 1863" - Justice in exergue holding scales and facing left. Clipper ship on Horizon, again she holds a horn of plenty with produce falling out of it.

The token is copper, 34mm in size and was minted by Heaton and Sons, again the Justice theme is used again as on the earlier tokens.

This is a pretty high quality token and one of the more common ones. Very little is known about H. Ashton, but being the mid 1800s it is likely he was a prosperous and prolific tailor who also imported fine materials and made up and sold garments to the settler population. His shop was in Queen Street, which in 1864 as now the main artery of Auckland city. That is all we know, not even his name and I assume he was Henry or Harry unless he had a formal name like Harold, Hartington etc.

Tailors were crucial in the pre buy clothes off the rack day and Haberdashery meant he also sold fabrics for making your own clothes (Very usual then, especially on the frontier) and also selling trimmings (Like adding some taffeta or organza to a frock, bows, cossages - you name it 1860s Aucklanders were well dressed for the rich - we had all the crinolines here too). My guess is he had a staff of people who finished and made garments and may have even sold curtain material, upholstery material and anything fabricy.

Yet we know more about his token issuing career than him, he first issued Halfpennies in 1858 and 1859, these were similar to the pennies but featured the earlier Justice as seen on the Day and Mieville penny above 2 coins back. Both are fairly common but worn. With these pennies he issued them 4 years later in 1862 and 1863. My coin is 1863 and the pennies featured this "updated" Justice allegory.

The earlier Justice allegory surprisingly was used as late as the 1870s and appears on an 1875 Clarkson token!

There are 3 Reverse varieties and mine is the 2nd one with smaller letters in Tailors. First variety has a die break in the first E in Haberdashery and 3rd along with 1st has higher letters in Tailors but Trimmers is wider.

The dates are of equal scarcity.

My coin is definitely well worn and near Fine, with a distinct weakness in middle of the coin, rim shows considerable wear and Justice is almost a silhouette. These coins are very scarce however in high grade and mostly found G - VG being a commonly used one. This example would come in around average to slightly better, it wins points too for not being cleaned and in original condition.

Wow - thanks for posting these, Princetane! Looks more like Arrowtown than Auckland!