Unofficial coins could make someone a mint

RARE CURRENCY FROM A TIME WHEN COPPER WAS IN SHORT SUPPLY

- NAOMI DESOUZA News Reporter

THEY are a rare glimpse of unofficial currency that kept businesses flowing in hard times.

The tokens were issued as unofficial coinage for use in Birmingham and the West Midlands in the 1790s when there was no official small copper change in the country.

Britain was at war with France and the price of copper had risen, causing the regal issue to vanish, and prompting a Welsh mining company to create stand-in tokens that could be redeemed - keeping the economy going in communities across the West Midlands.