Glasgow 1/2d

22mm, green plastic

About this token:

• Jerry writes: This token is listed in Smiths book as Scotland 420CD (I think, the diameter in millimeters and the exact color cause 4 different numbers, two 22mm and two 24mm diameter).

• Paul writes: This is Glasgow in Scotland. I have similar tokens from Chesterfield, Newcastle, Nottingham, and others. Some town/cities used metal tokens.

  The "D" is for "old pence". The "pence" of the old "Pounds, Shillings and Pence" system. This helps us date the pieces - they must be from before the 1970's. It is likely the pieces are from the 1960's. Usually different colours were used for each denomination.

  A typical use of the tokens would be that they would be given to school children so they could spend them on buses to effectively make their journies to and from work free. I believe that also council workers would get tokens - at the time many bus services were run by departments of the local council (our name for local - town/city - government). These days of course bus passes etc... are used - though in one or two parts of the country some metal tokens - not in the style of the Glasgow piece - are still used.

• A similar token recently appeared on eBay, and the seller noted that: Travelers to England are familar with the paper receipts given for payment of bus fares. However, under certain conditions metal, celluloid or plastic tokens were used for payment of fares by city, county and government employees in lieu of cash. These are quite scarce as they were destroyed in 1971 when Great Britain switched to decimal currency. According to Smith who has catalogued these tokens, "Most pre-decimal tokens exist in less than 200 each in collectors hands".

Know anything about this token? Please let me know!

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