World Tokens

Guadeloupe, MARIE GALANTE, Anse Canot, copper 40 (cart loads) check, anse canot, rev. value, 32mm, 10.33g/12h (Byrne 1051). Fine, very rare £150-200

Provenance: Bt P. Nadin-Davis August 1982.

The tokens of Anse Canot have been a series that proved difficult to attribute for many years. The first listing of them appears to be under Haiti in auction catalogue 80 of the Berlin numismatist Adolph Weyl (January 1887). Subsequently they were attributed to Canada (Prince Edward Island), Curaçao and finally St. Lucia. As early as 1895 Guadeloupe was suggested as the location for these tokens and this was later, in 1967, revisited, but research at that time was never completed and the St Lucia attribution of Ray Byrne was followed by the cataloguer of his collection.

After considerable research and correspondence with a number of people, Edward Roehrs correctly attributed these tokens in NI Bulletin 36 (September 2000). They were produced, probably c. 1850, and used on the island of Marie Galante, at sugar factories close to the small town of Saint Louis, locally called ‘Anse Canot’. Marie Galante (53 square miles and located 16 miles south-east of Guadeloupe) is a ‘sugar island’ and a dependency of Guadeloupe. The tokens, which are numbered 1, 5, 10, 20 and 40 were used as tallies for ‘cane carts’ drawn by oxen and delivered to the factory.

It would appear that when the tokens were no longer required they were shipped to Le Havre, presumably to be melted for scrap; all surviving specimens are the few that were removed prior to melting. The cataloguer raises a note of caution in that due to the long association with Canadian numismatics the Anse Canot tokens fall into that group of rare Canadian pieces that were ‘copied’, in the late 19th century to satisfy the desire of individuals to add these to their collection