NEW BOOK: PLANTATION TOKENS OF BRITISH NORTH BORNEO

In the 2001 edition Plantation, Merchant, and Mining Money of the Netherlands East Indies, authors: A.J. Lansen and L.T. Wells jr., some additional tokens from British North Borneo were added.

In recent years it has become increasingly clear that a reworking of the existing data and a new numbering was desirable. A large number of the, so-called , LaWe numbers therefore have been discontinued.

This book describes a total of twenty-two different plantations and companies, including six new ones. As far as possible, after extensive research, the interesting plantation and company history has also been described, to the extent that this could still be traced. Six new chapters have been added to the overview drawn up by Mr Saran Singh. (second edition 1996)

A total of 117 tokens are now described in this book. Also thirteen wrongly attributed Estate tokens to British North Borneo are described.

Corrections, complementary information or other comments regarding these tokens and their use will be warmly welcomed by the author, who can be reached at the following address: A.J. Lansen, Haanderik 94, 3401 ET IJsselstein, The Netherlands and: @ lansenkil@hotmail.nl and ajlansen@caiway.nl

Own company money was used by various plantations to pay their workers. Due to a shortage of other means of payment, this own company or estate money was issued by various plantations from about 1888. These tokens, company money, were also accepted as legal tender by the British North Borneo Company (BNBC).

Due to misuse, the tokens were officially registered, e.g. mentioned in the state ordinance of 1903, 1906 and 1912.

Any company or estate with more than 100 plantation workers was allowed to issue tokens of monetary value with prior authorization from the authorities.

Per plantation worker no more than five dollars in estate or company money, per issue, could be minted. It was required to hand over a copy of each token to the nearest district office or to the Ministry of Finance in Sandakan.

In 1921 the issue of these company or estate tokens was abolished. The companies were obliged to annually surrender twenty percent of their total registered assets in these tokens, i.e. company money, to the authorities. As a result, on December 1924, the private issuance of this plantation money came to an end.

Due to this official collection of this plantation money and on the basis of documents traced in recent decades in auctions, publications, dealers' lists, etc. the conclusion can be drawn that the majority of these BNB plantation tokens can be classified as very rare to extremely rare.

About the Author
Adrian J. Lansen, born in 1942 in the South Province Zeeland of the Netherlands, now a retired civil engineer in road and hydraulic engineering. Still happily married and father of two girls.

For many decades Member of the Royal Dutch Numismatic Society, the Belgian European Coin and Medal Society and the ANA-USA. Member of the Netherlands Utrecht Numismatic Circle and three other Numismatic Clubs in Belgium.

Collecting coins, medals and tokens from the Netherlands, and specifically from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch East Indies, spanning over more than 60 years. Written and published dozens of articles on these subjects, and give numerous lectures at home and abroad about these collection areas. Including many – numismatic trips to Asia,

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web