British Guiana, GEORGETOWN, Bookers Shipping (Demerara) Ltd, aluminium check, bookers ships labourers, back stamped 730, 35mm, 4.03g (Lyall 114, this piece; Prid. –); Middlemass Bros & Co, brass check, c. 1870, 24.5mm, 4.31g (Lyall 116; Prid. 63) [2]. First fine and very rare, second about extremely fine £60-80

Provenance: First R.A. Byrne Collection, Jess Peters Auction 78 (Los Angeles), 13-14 June 1975, lot 1072 (recté British Guiana); second E.C. Leslie Collection, Henry Christensen Auction 66 (New York), 7 April 1978, lot 15.

Bookers Shipping (Demerara) Ltd, originally founded by Josias Booker, who emigrated from Liverpool to Demerara as a plantation manager in 1815