Brink Brothers BPK - Montagu
Brink Brothers bpk Tokens ...
First of a disclaimer before people go all Penny Sparrow on me ....
I only copy that what has been said(written) ... in today's terms the Brink Brothers of yesteryear was not very politically correct.
These guys where situated in Montagu , Cape Province (duh , say so on the token )
Between 1902 and 1985 the Brink Brother's enterprises were of major significance to the town. Their activities included general dealers, bottling works, canning factory, dried fruit production and a department store.
Brink Brothers had two sets of trade tokens, the earlier set made of fibre and the latter of brass.
And the story .....
In 1944 the Food and Canning Workers Union had a meeting with the dried fruit companies in Worcester, chaired by the Mayor of Worcester.
The spokesman for the dried fruit companies was George Brink, of Brink Brothers.
George Brink said that he refused to sit at a meeting with "kxxxxs(bad word), hotnots and jode". (Black people , Coloureds and Jews)
George Brink left the meeting which continued without him.
In May 1945 the dried fruit workers went out on strike. Employers refused to settle the strike. There was a stalemate and the bosses wanted to break the union so that it would never strike again.
George Brink lost this battle and an agreement was eventually struck with the Union.
Not that I believe everything coming from this website (caution)
http://www.tokencoins.com/montagu.htm
Another site with some info ...
http://www.aasvoelkrans.co.za/the-town/the-history/
Some postcard from the period with the Brink family , a cash register used at the Brink Store , this can be seen at the Montagu museum..
These were in use from 1944 .
The brass tokens where set two , set one was a fibre set.
In the fibre set you had 20/- , 10/- , 1/- , 6d , 3d and a 1d . Note there was also a blank Fibre token.
Brass was 33.2 mm , 1.7mm thick , edge smooth .