Convict Love Tokens

Australia was established as a penal colony of Britain in 1788 after Trans-Atlantic transportation ended with the American Revolution. Love tokens were often made by convicts sentenced to transportation to be given to loved ones while they were waiting to be transported. These often had names, dates of transportation, and even images engraved. Original convict love tokens with direct links to transportation sell for thousands of dollars when they do pop up for sale, so it is unlikely I will get my hands on one anytime soon, although I have got a few unnamed and/or undated ones which sell for cheaper.

For this reason, I figured I would have a go at making my own in the style of a convict trade token. I will preface this by saying I have ‘ruined’ a coin in the process of creating my own love token in case this is something you are not interested in seeing. (being a coin forum after all). 

The coin I decided to use was one of the 1797 cartwheel pennies I recently showed in the ‘additions’ thread. These were all incredibly worn and damaged and have practically no numismatic value (I would never destroy an expensive coin!). Additionally, these coins have a diameter of 36mm meaning they are quite a suitable canvas for engraving due to their large size. 
 

Mine is nowhere near perfect, but neither were the originals. These were all made by hand by those waiting to be sent across the globe with limited tools, and therefore are usually crudely made. It is quite common to see these with spelling errors and other mistakes as they were often made by illiterates.

British George III 1797 Cartwheel Penny ‘Convict Love Token’ Facsimile

This is my first attempt and looking back there are definitely areas to improve but I think it turned out ok. The obverse had no detail of the king left so I didn’t need to sand back the design which made things easier. If anyone is interested, I can send some photos of the steps and tools I used to make it. I’m not sure if I should maybe add some text such as a retrospective date in the field next to the ship or even engrave a message on the reverse. Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated but I hope this is something interesting for you.

Here is a link to the 315 Convict Love Tokens in the National Museum Australia’s collection:

https://love-tokens.nma.gov.au/

An interesting thing to note is that defacing the king’s portrait on a coin was considered an act of treason in 1797 and punishable by death.

That looks great, you can tell the tooling is modern too, some of those holey cartwheels you bought are ripe for some art.

Sometimes the spelling may not always be illiterate. The English language was morphing into its last modern form between 1770 and 1850. Usually the innovations filtered down to the oldest, poorest and least literate last.

So you may see a love token saying “Jofiah Smithe was imprifon'd and sent ye acrofs the see Nvr 5 1826” and you realise they still used the long s, that looked like a lower case F with out the slash and words with “ed” suffixes had the e replaced by an apostrophe. Also some very late uses of an extra e on the end of words and ye in the place of “the” persisted into the 1700s and rarely into the very early 1800s. Expect some spelling mistakes too for the newly literate then.

My cartwheel tuppence for you - definitely not for carving love token practice on!

Very nice! The technique is sometimes called prick-punching. You can get finer results using a smaller point. I've used a large needle with good results.

Are your lines scratched with a steel point or cut with a graver? Most of the ones I looked at from NMA appear to be engraved. The lines are wider and more defined. But it is a bit more difficult to wield than a scratch awl.

By all means try lettering. Block letters are easier than script. I'd advise practicing on scrap copper or brass. I'd like to see your results!

Moneytane

That looks great, you can tell the tooling is modern too, some of those holey cartwheels you bought are ripe for some art.

 

Sometimes the spelling may not always be illiterate. The English language was morphing into its last modern form between 1770 and 1850. Usually the innovations filtered down to the oldest, poorest and least literate last.

 

So you may see a love token saying “Jofiah Smithe was imprifon'd and sent ye acrofs the see Nvr 5 1826” and you realise they still used the long s, that looked like a lower case F with out the slash and words with “ed” suffixes had the e replaced by an apostrophe. Also some very late uses of an extra e on the end of words and ye in the place of “the” persisted into the 1700s and rarely into the very early 1800s. Expect some spelling mistakes too for the newly literate then.

 

 

 

My cartwheel tuppence for you - definitely not for carving love token practice on!

There definitely are some good canvases for some more ‘love tokens’ in that lot of cartwheel pennies. I was quite intrigued with the hole on this one here, it almost reminds me of a Chinese Cash coin.

That’s some good points about the spellings too. There have been some good discussions on the long s these past few weeks, the latest I have seen them in use is from some mid-1850s Victorian gold rush items. They must have been pretty obsolete by this point, and I’m sure unrecognisable to some.

spauldingph

Very nice! The technique is sometimes called prick-punching. You can get finer results using a smaller point. I've used a large needle with good results.

 

Are your lines scratched with a steel point or cut with a graver? Most of the ones I looked at from NMA appear to be engraved. The lines are wider and more defined. But it is a bit more difficult to wield than a scratch awl.

 

By all means try lettering. Block letters are easier than script. I'd advise practicing on scrap copper or brass. I'd like to see your results!

Thanks! You are correct with the steel point, the lines were just scratched with a regular scribe. I was actually having a look at getting a graver because the lines with the scribe are not as well defined as I would have liked and as you said — replicate the majority of the originals a bit more.
 

The ‘stippling’/ prick punch on the coin was done with a spring-loaded metal punch. I can adjust the pressure a bit for different depths but I really need to get some different sized points for different results. 

On saying this though, the original convict trade tokens would have been made with a lot more rudimentary tools than I used, as well as a lot more patience and skill! I will definitely give lettering a go, I will let you know how it goes and post some images.

My cartwheel penny is so worn, maybe even convicts turned it down.

Its so worn its identifiable by type only, I grade it Poor -1 (P-1).

One side of my family tree I am descended from the convicts Thomas Harris (1762 - c1830) 2nd fleet and Charlotte Ware (1766 - 1820s) 1st fleet, their son came to NZ in the pre colonial era and married a Maori woman, became a Pakeha Maori.