G L Beath & Co Drapers Christchurch, c1870 - 74 Penny Token
Obv - Words: G.L.Beath & Co, Clotheirs, Direct, Importers, &, Drapers, Christchurch, (Example has hole at 11.30 o'clock)
Rev - Argyle House, Cashel Street, Coat of Arms of the Argyle Family (English from Dutch origin Van Arkel) pertaining to the building not firm. Latin incription "Vix ea nostra voco" means "I hardly call them ours".
This token obviously has a hole through it and because of that fact it was cheap, otherwise its not bad and would grade Fine or slightly better. Most of them are found in poor condition, being a usual low quality item from Stokes and Co in Melbourne (Lets be honest, they were the el cheapo producer). This one is worse, its copper and only 31mm weighing 9.4 grams. So the same size and weight of a bronze penny after 1860, yet an el cheapo copper version.
It is not dated, but is believed to be early 1870s for 2 reasons, one being G.L. Beath only joined the firm started by a Mr Kirby in 1860, in 1866. Generally one does not starting issuing tokens when they first join a company.
The other being the coin is smaller, and Stokes was known to be making the full sized copper tokens (34 - 35mm, 14 - 15 grams) well into the 1870s. Finally the Beath Company as we see has lasted through to the 1980s! Compare that to their competitors across the street (Yes) Hobday and Jobberns who crashed and burned in 1888.
Roker gives the coin a date of c1870, but I believe it is later and many Christchurch tokens were made well into the later 1870s and even early 1880s.
G.L Beath is one of Christchurch's oldest and long running firms, started in 1860 by a Mr Kirby, he was joined by George Beath in 1866 and in 1869 Kirby was brought out by Beath and Frank Malcolm starting a partnership that lasted until 1896. In 1871 they lost a lot of money when the wooden town hall they leased from 1858 burnt down and they lost £3k and only were insured for 1k. Things picked up as they moved from Drapery and importing fabric to general department store materials - yet the market was saturated with these stores. Across the street was Hobday and Jobberns, Ballantynes, Stranges, the DIC who opened a state of the art store in 1881, which burnt down in 1908 and Beaths joined with them that year becoming DIC Beaths.
This was their only token and it's pretty basic, 2 obverse and 4 reverse varieties exist, none are scarce. Like most Christchurch tokens, they are frequently found in wells, basements and rubbish tips and earthquake salvage has meant more have been found. This coin will eventually be upgraded.
The DIC Building at a much later time.
Argyle House was demolished sometime in the 1910s and a 6 storey single bay monstrosity was built with a tea garden on top. This building was demiolished in the 1980s and the building to the right survived to the present day (It was built in the early 1930s). Beaths DIC was brought out by Arthur Barnetts in 1983 and the department store lasted until 1999. That year it shut down and the building was turned into Christchurch's main bus station called the "Crossing" and included a airbridge across to Ballatynes across Colombo street. In 2011, the earthquakes affected it and it was shut down. To this day the building remains empty.
DIC Beaths tower in the mid to late 1930s, building across street is the Ballantynes building which replaced the Hobday and Jobberns one in 1889. This building was destroyed in a dreadful fire in November 1947 which killed 41 people and was our worst ever commercial disaster before the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Of course George Beath died in 1914, but by the time of the above photo, Beaths DIC owned most of the buildings on that block.
The next 2 tokens are foreign coins used in New Zealand and one is merely an exemplar of the Justice allegory found on many NZ tokens.
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Posted 05/17/2022 11:46 pm
