Anyone Know What This Is? | English Merchant Token

If you copy and paste the following in your web browser it takes you to an online book which has an entry for the above token on page 40.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...PPA40-IA4,M1

Not much info on it, but it is definitely a merchants token. Not used to circulate as money, but to exchange for goods at the shop, presumably.

This forum's got a 'URL detector' - it automatically tries to turn URLs into hyperlinks.

It's also got a URL truncator for really long ones like that; otherwise, threads turn into super-wide sideways-scrollers, which are harder to read.

As for the token, it's listed in that old catalogue under the category of advertising pieces. The chapter is subheaded, "Made for sale, and not for circulation as money; Tradesmen's Shop Tickets, given away by them as advertisements, ete. in Copper.". Stylistically, it looks very similar to the Australian trade tokens of the mid-1800's, many of which were made in England, presumably some of them at the same firm that made this token.

Commoner Australian tokens in that condition are normally worth $10 or so. British advertising pieces of that time period may well be more common. They're not listed in any reference book I have.

Update on the age: I didn't notice before, but the book in leebreeze's link is from 1858, which gives a date range for the coin: somewhere between 1837 (Queen Victoria's accession) and 1858.