This piece is listed in the Fuld Civil War Token book as a Chicago, Illinois item with the variety number IL 150-AS-1a. The obverse reads, "Bank drafts for 1 £ and upwards on the Royal Bank of Ireland, 1861." The reverse reads, "Passage Certificates from Liverpool to Chicago, No 6 Clark Street." Researchers have attributed this token to George Whitney although his name does not appear on the piece. The passage certificate business may have been a separate entity from Whitney's bank draft company. This token represents a large slice of the story of the Irish immigration to America. Life was never easy for the Irish in "the old country," but it got markedly worse in the 1840s when a potato famine left perhaps a million Irishmen to starve. Irish citizens scraped together whatever money they could to book passage, quite often to The United States and Canada. Between 1846 and 1855, 1.5 million Irishmen made the trip to The United States. Once they reached the U.S., they faced discrimination, but even with that, their prospects were much brighter in America than they had been in Erin Once they reached the U.S. these immigrants worked and saved has much money as they could spare to send funds to their family and relatives who were still in Ireland. It was said that even Irish criminals felt an obligation to send money back home. Despite the fact that these drafts were for as little as £1, and were almost never larger than £10, almost 1 million pounds sterling arrived at the Liverpool banking houses alone from the mid 1840s to mid 1850s. The family and relatives who received these funds used some money for living expenses, but in many cases they saved those few pounds until they could book passage to America to be re-united with their loved ones. Therefore this little, cent sized token, which somewhat scarce and rated as a Rarity-5 (estimated 75 to 200 known), has an interesting story to tell.
In 1850, one pound sterling was worth US$4.35. As to what that equates to, that's much more complicated. As ONE data point, the daily wage of a laborer in New York was between $0.63 and $1.25 per day for a 60 hour week. https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1850-1859
