Token Canada Montreal Un Sou 1837

This token was minted back in 1837, before Canada became a federation. The government did not supply enough coinage to support commerce, so the banks filled the gap with small denomination pieces like this one. They were struck during the rebellion of Robert Nelson and Louis-Joseph Papineau against the British.

It is called a bouquet token for obvious reasons. There are several different variations in pattern, but the wreath and bouquet of flowers is on all of them. Some variations replace TOKEN with BANQUE DU PEUPLE. They all are worth about the same amount.

Token collectors, a subset of coin collectors, seek out nice-looking examples to add to their collections. The one in our picture is in pretty good shape, and would sell for about $20 US dollars retail. Very approximately:

worn: $8 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $20
well preserved: $55
fully uncirculated: $150

If you have one to sell, figure that a coin dealer would pay about one-half of the retail price, or less, to buy it from you. The margin is large on this type of collectible because there are not many token collectors.
cqLastNotify