BL-4 Blacksmith Token VF-EF (VF-30) According to McLachlan, in about 1835, a blacksmith in Montreal began to make his own halfpennies to pay for liquor. He made counterfeits of the battered, worn-out, old English and Irish regal halfpennies of George III. His dies were purposely left unfinished in order to create the appearance of a badly worn token. His halfpennies were then artificially darkened, probably by overheating, to create the illusion of age. Only a crude outline of the type was cut, without a date or legend. A peculiarity of these pieces is that the types are almost always reversed because the die-sinkers cut the types on the dies to face the same way as on the tokens they used as models. These pieces were accepted in trade because of the insatiable demand for small change in Lower Canada at the time, particularly in Montreal.BL-4 Variety: Obverse: Laureate bust of George III facing left, the mouth slightly open, large Adams apple, and humped shoulder. The bow is double with the upper loop larger and both ribbon ends pointing upwards. Reverse: A harp facing left with ten strings. The die is badly cracked, especially parallel to the body of the harp. Specifications: Composition: Copper Weight: 3.5 to 7.1 g Diameter: 27.3 mm Die Axis: ↑↓ Edge: Plain Information provided by the 2023 Canadian Colonial Tokens, 11th Edition, Edited by: Clément Chapados-Girard, Published by: Mark Drake
