World Tokens

Jamaica, Checks, Tickets and Tokens, KINGSTON, Edwin Charley, aluminium, enter charley’s stack o’silver contest today, rev. standing figure holding a bottle of White Label rum, 32mm, 2.72g/12h (Lyall –); Wonards Radio Engineering Ltd, uniface brass, stamped maytag wonards, 24mm, 8.08g (Lyall 216; Ford 624; Tankersley 329); Global Gaming Technology Ltd, brass Dollar [2001+], global gaming technology ltd jamaica around globe, rev. value in wreath, 25mm, 5.50g/6h; montego bay, Casa Blanca Hotel, brass, casa blanca hotel montego bay, jamaica, b.w.i., rev. palm-tree, the beachcomber, 32mm, 8.83g/12h (Lyall 179; Ford 619; Tankersley 318); Dog tax, a copper bracteate, stamped 1970, crown and 386, 24mm, 2.06g (Lyall 184; Tankersley 318); Military Dog License, uniface rectangular brass by P.C. Vendryes, c. 1940, stamped 323, 45 x 20mm, 6.04g (Lyall –) [6]. First fine, others very fine £30-50

Provenance: First bt R.A. Brandon 1991; second gift of R.A. Brandon 1991; fourth bt R. Lyall; fifth gift of R.A. Brandon 1985; sixth bt R.A. Brandon 1989.

Edwin Alexander Charley (1873-1940), an emigrant from British Columbia, established his rum merchant and distillery business in Kingston in the early 1890s. His ‘Charley’s White Label’ rum became highly popular, his subsequent fortune enabling him to acquire the Innswood sugar plantation in St Catherine and a bottling factory in King street. Ill-health forced him to sell the business in 1920; it changed hands again in 1937 and was acquired by Seagram in 1955, when the brand was reintroduced. Wonards Radio Engineering Ltd, headquartered at 55 1/2 Church street; the checks were used to operate Maytag washing machines sited in apartment blocks in Kingston. Global Gaming Technology Ltd or GTECH, the lottery operator in Jamaica, established in partnership with Supreme Ventures Ltd, 2001; the parent company was incorporated in 1973. The Casa Blanca Hotel closed c. 1974; the checks were made by Greg Wright & Sons, Cincinnati, OH (Lyall p.72)