Help With Identifying Possible Colonial Copper

It struck me (no pun intended) to be of the 1785-88 post colonials. should be easy to ID facing left, mailed bust and ribbon tails. ?

It appears to be one of the counterfeit British coppers that were so prevalent in England and America in the latter half of the 18th century. Details on these were often reversed either intentionally or inadvertently by inexperienced die cutters. Definitely not a state copper or Machin's product.

My first thought was George III imitation halfpenny but the bust type more resembles that as used on the mailed bust Connecticut and Vermont issues.

That being said there are a few known G3 imitations and evasion issues with partial and full reverse brockages resulting in the characteristic backwards Britannia.

It looks like it is badly worn but in fact it could be a VF or better grade. These were made to look worn.
This one apppears to be BL-7 and if you go to ebay and look up Blacksmith Token in Canada Coins
https://www.ebay.com/sch/Tokens-182...ksmith+token
you may find it for sale in worse condition than yours.
I would scurry back to that junk bin and look for more coppers and brass that looks like this.
Believe it or not there are some pretty plain ones that fetch a lot more money and are quite rare.
Yours is one of the more common ones, but not the most common.
My value guess is about right.

to CCF .... yeah, I re-read you got it 40 years ago after I posted. I think the junk bin is picked over by now. You have a neat token there. I only own one. Mine is BL-37 one that is about equally available and slightly less valuable I suppose depending on the current supply and demand.
I have chased the one you have from time to time and sometimes it goes a little cheaper if there are a lot for sale at that time. The others, I would just have to get lucky on like you did with this. Hard to fork out a couple few hundred dollars for these things huh?
My Blacksmith Canadian Colonial Half Penny Token BL-37

Nice Blacksmith token! Nice condition too.

NickelGuy: Yeah, that store is long-gone. It was in the Mission District of San Francisco, and I think it might have been a front for some sort of gambling parlor, because middle-aged guys would frequently come in and -- after a nod to the owner -- go straight through some beaded curtains to the back of the store. Teen-aged me was usually the only person actually looking at coins. There were dozens of boxes of foreign stuff, and I'd hunt for an hour, pull out a dozen interesting things, and then the owner would give me a price that seemed to be based solely on the number of silver coins in my pile -- he didn't seem to care about the copper at all. The price was always something less than ten bucks, even when I'd found a couple of those low-mintage 1920's Canadian small cents. Ah, the good old days. And yes, I feel lucky that I've got such an interesting (and somewhat valuable) coin. And I like the look of the one you posted -- the lettering on it adds to the appeal I think.

Thank you jerseyben and TJcoins as well. The hyperlinked article was interesting; I guess these guys could make 100 fake halfpennies for significantly less than 50 cents out of pocket. Who woulda thunk it.