Cool finds Guy.
In case you didn't know, the spread eagle/Britannia token was privately issued between 1813-1815 by an American merchant called Nye from Phillipsburg NJ, who had established a trading relationship out of Boston into Montreal, and then re-located there around 1812. With the encouragement and support of other merchants, he privately funded the issue of these tokens to alleviate the desperate shortage of small denomination coins. The British government had themselves done little to address the problem beyond sending occasional consignments of very worn coins that had been withdrawn from circulation in Britain.
The use of the ‘American’ eagle together with Britannia as design elements was Nye’s choice and initially not well-received in all areas, given the War of 1812 had just ended. It’s incorrectly reported in some Some sources say these pieces were overstruck on tokens originally issued by the Bristol (England) merchant Samuel Guppy, but that doesn't seem to be the case for all of them.
Imitations of them were re-issued between 1825-1837 using dies with false dates of 1813-1815 produced in America. These later imitations had the same 28mm diameter but were thinner and ‘light-weighted’ at ~6g (5.5-7g) versus the original 8.8g. Yours is one of the originals since the tail feathers interrupt the date, whereas on the later imitations the tail feathers are above the date.
