Help Needed With A Heavily Worn Coin, King George III Maybe? (Id: 1858 Prof. Holloway Token)

Good job! Was driving me a little nuts.

Yep, a Holloways token, with the typical corrosion seen on Australasian examples.

Several barrels of Holloways tokens were on board the Dunbar when it sank off Sydney Heads in 1857. Some barrels were recovered in the weeks following the shipwreck and the tokens put into circulation (the colony being desperate for small change of any kind), but even that brief time spent submerged in salt water caused some corrosion to the pure copper tokens. Other barrels broke apart in the wreck, and tokens continued to be washed up on the nearby shore for years afterwards. This piece has both wear and significant corrosion and is likely one of those "beach finds".

If you have a Holloways token and it does not show any sign of corrosion, it was most likely a token that saw circulation in Britain or North America, rather than Australia.

Ass a historical aside: Holloways Pills were the "Coca Cola" of the mid 19th century. "Professor" Holloway (not a real professor) was one of the world's first mass-marketeers, selling his snake-oil pills and ointments world-wide. Chemical analysis of surviving Holloways pills show them to be made of sugar, charcoal dust, and traces of herbal extracts: aloe, myrrh, and saffron. While not actually harmful, none of these ingredients were capable of providing the multitude of medicinal benefits the advertisements claimed for the pills.

@Sap - Thanks for info on the Dunbar. I detected and dug a Holloway's token from an old house site in Brisbane a few months ago. Interesting story and may explain how it got there.