A convict love token is an engraved coin, typically a smoothed-down copper penny inscribed by British convicts in the late 18th and 19th centuries as a keepsake for loved ones before their transportation to Australia. These tokens often featured messages of love, remembrance, or despair, serving as one of the few tangible connections between convicts and the families they left behind. 

Australia. Convict Love Token. Michael Hogan & Ellen McHenry, deported 1830. Rigged ship under sail right; some cannons engraved on gun ports, above, "To Ellen McHenry the Liberty 1830"; "When this you see Remember me until I gain my Liberty from Michael Hogan". Inscribed on a smoothed George III Cartwheel penny. Ex Sterling & Co, New Zealand. 

Michael Hogan ( age 17 ) was convicted in Middlesex Goal and sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for theft. On 13 April 1830, he departed England aboard the transport ship Adrian and 166 others, arriving in New South Wales on 20 August. His lover, Ellen McHenry ( age 20 ), was similarly convicted in Middlesex on 14 January 1830 for stealing a sheet and three pairs of shoes from her landlady, Frances Head, after being asked to leave, with the stolen items found to be pawned. She was sentenced to seven years and transported separately on 27 May 1830 aboard the Mellish with 117 other women, arriving in Van Diemen's Land / Tasmania on 22 September.

By 1836, Michael Hogan was granted permission to marry fellow convict Mary Collier, a former nurse in Bathurst, New South Wales. Collier, convicted of "man robbery" in 1831 for the theft of 3 gold sovereigns, was sentenced to seven years ( age 17 ) aboard the Pyramus with 148 others, departing on 8 October 1831 and arriving in NSW on 5 March 1832. She is described in records as a literate Protestant of fair complexion, standing 4' 9-1/4 tall. Previously, in 1835, she was granted an application of marriage to another convict, William West, but that did not go ahead for reasons unknown. 

Hogan and Collier became publicans in Sydney, establishing the Talbot Inn in 1848, which became the Crossroads Hotel, standing to this day as one of Sydney's oldest pubs. In April 2022, Crossroads became Australia's most expensively traded pub, selling for $160 million AUD. 

Their daughter, Mary Anne Hogan, became a notorious figure in San Francisco's criminal underworld with the onset of the California Gold Rush. She was a known member of the Sydney Ducks, a gang composed of Australian ex-convicts, and the lover of two infamous criminals, James "Long Jim" Stuart and Samuel Whittaker. After a fire destroyed her pub, suspected to be a Ducks hideout in Sansome St, she relocated to Green and Dupont Streets, where Whittaker moved in with her, paying $20 weekly for board. While she denied receiving any gifts or stolen goods from him, she admitted to handling 21 ounces of gold and $300 on his behalf, which was later returned.

This item, along with many other numismatic rarities, will be exhibited at the upcoming Auckland Numismatic Expo on 26 April 2025.