Bouquet sou

Roughly equivalent in value to a half penny, the "bouquet sou" were so called because they displayed a group of heraldic flowers tied together with a ribbon on their obverse.

They were initially issued by the banks of Lower Canada, and were later imitated by speculators who produced tokens that looked similar, but were underweight for their denomination.

[1] Large numbers of these tokens were produced and many examples can easily be obtained for only a few Canadian dollars, though a few rare varieties can command significantly higher prices.

[5] This first bouquet sou had a floral design consisting of shamrocks, roses, thistles and ears of wheat, surrounded by an inscription saying "Trade & Commerce / Lower Canada".

The exchange broker Dexter Chapin imported a large quantity of bouquet sou that were minted in Belleville, New Jersey.

[13] Designed by the Montreal engraver Joseph Arnault,[14] the reverse includes two emblems of liberty: a star to the left and a Phrygian cap to the right.

[15] A manuscript has been found in the National Archives of Canada claiming that this token was released in Saint-Charles on the first day of the Assembly of the Six Counties.

[23] The many unofficial and underweight versions of the bouquet sou reached a critical point, and the banks in Lower Canada stopped accepting them.

[34] Modern guides list over 50 tokens belonging to the bouquet sou series, many of which have significant variants, including die orientation, planchet thickness and being struck on different metals to name a few.

[35] More modern studies of the bouquet sou have discovered additional varieties that were unknown to the 19th century numismatists, including at least one issue that was struck over previously minted coins.

Willey described a number of additional, earlier token types that had otherwise been "rendered obsolete when the banks would no longer take them except by weight".