West Caicos Sisal Company Tokens – Gary Oddie

This note begins with a brief history and description of industries that have taken place on the Turks and Caicos Islands and in particular sisal growing. This is followed by a description of the West Caicos Sisal Company and a group of tokens issued to pay the workforce and redeemable in the Company Store.
The style of the dies is quite unusual, with just a simple incuse legend. Thus when two specimens appeared of British half-pennies overstruck with the reverse die of the shilling token and more recently a British penny overstruck with the reverse die of the two shilling token, they were really quite obvious.
The three new pieces all appeared in the USA and were sold without any reference to the original use of the dies. This and other features of the pieces leads to the suggestion that they were struck using the original reverse dies, but many decades after the original token issues, possibly even as late as 2010.