In honour of Valentine’s Day

In honour of Valentine’s Day, I wanted to draw attention to what may be Canberra’s most romantic collection of objects.

The National Museum of Australia (NMA) holds the largest collection of convict love tokens in the world, 314 tokens in total.

What is a convict love token? They were coins that were smoothed and engraved with messages of affection. Convicts that were transported from England used the simple tokens, also known as 'leaden hearts', as a memento, to leave with loved ones they would probably never see again.

Most of the NMA’s collection was acquired from British dealer and collector, Timothy Millett. Thanks to the efforts of Timothy Millett and other researchers, convicts associated with about 80 of the tokens have been identified. The NMA has a continuing program of research into the collection, which aims to identify more convicts associated with the tokens.

You can see the entire collection in an impressive, interactive display the NMA has set up here. Happy exploring!

Acknowledgement: Inspired by the NMA’s collection of convict love tokens the image above is HOBART TOWN CHAIN GANG. It comes from the State Library of Victoria and is out of copyright. See acknowledgement page for full details.

Please share. Let’s get the past and present talking.