The Sydney Hodgkinson Find

Dease Creek cream 25 Cent card money No. 476

Card scripts (or card tokens) from the H.B.C. Tradings Posts in Northern B.C. were collected by Sydney Hodgkinson and brought in to All Nations by his family.

Sydney Hodgkinson worked as an accountant with the mighty Hudson’s Bay Company from 1908 to 1935. The trading posts were often in tiny, remote settlements.

Brian Grant-Duff is the expert who has handled the entire collection: card scrip is basically non-government issued, unofficial or semi-official currency. It looks like they come from the pre-World War I era. The historical record, which is scant, says that they were not supposed to be issued, they were not authorized by the Hudsons Bay Company. But the poor guys running the post needed some form of money as people were trading. So this is possibly locally created scrip.

The scrips are very small, like an old-fashioned ticket at a movie theatre. They come in four different denominations, each with a different colour. The 25-cent scrips were white, 50 cents were green, $1 was red and $5 was blue.

“What is interesting is that it’s multi-coloured printing,” said Grant-Duff. “They managed to get a rainbow-coloured printing on it, I guess to prevent counterfeiting. I’m not sure how they did that, but it’s  extraordinary.

Grant Duff auctioned the first scrip in the cache on June 20 2015. It was estimated at $100, but wound up selling for $1,099. Six bidders from across Canada faced off over the scrip, which appeals to both Hudson’s Bay Company and B.C. collectors. The rarity of the scrips makes them valuable. 

Thank you John Mackie for these words from your article in The Vancouver Sun.