File:American plantations token, struck under James II and made out of tin. (FindID 133555).jpg

English: An 'American plantations token', made out of tin and minted under James II for use in the American plantations. This token was valued at one 24th of Spanish real, or one and a half farthings.

In August 1688 John Holt, agent for a number of tin mines petitioned the King for the right to produce tin tokens for use in the American plantations. Though there are no surviving documents to prove that permission was granted, the existance of a number of dies cut by John Roettier and now in the British Museum, London, suggest that permission was granted.

Just four months later on 11th December, King James II fled England during the 'Glorious Revolution', resulting in the immedate cessation in the production of plantation tokens. None have yet been discovered in the colonies suggesting that these tokens never left England.

Eric Newman (1964) identified seven obverse dies and seven reverse dies used in the production of plantation tokens, from which study we can show that this present token uses the die combination 2-B. This combination is important in showing that the token is not one of Matthew Young's series of restrikes using original dies in 1828. These restrikes were made out of a pewter-based metal and used the die-combinations 5-D, 4-D and 4-E (http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/AmPlant.intro.html).