November’s meeting was a talk on Hop Tokens by Duncan Pennock. Duncan recounted how he started his numismatics interests
as a coin collector till one day on a trip to Dungeness he spotted some lead tokens for sale.....November 2006.
Next club meeting - Monday 3rd December 2007.
The activities will be as follows
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
November meeting
November’s meeting was a talk on Hop Tokens by Duncan Pennock. Duncan recounted how he started his numismatics interests
as a coin collector till one day on a trip to Dungeness he spotted some lead tokens for sale.....
The hop was introduced into England in 1520. It was used in the brewery industry because it was found to preserve the beer and its use had become widespread by 1570. Hops were mainly grown in Kent and Eastwards and the quantity grown meant that hop-pickers had to be brought in from London and elsewhere. They were paid in tokens per bushel, starting at1d per bushel and rising to 3d per bushel. The main period when they were used was 1720 – 1850 but some were still in use up till the 1950s. Initially the pickers came by sea, river, road and later rail. Special hop pickers trains were laid on which were packed full as many people left London in droves. Hop pickers tended to camp around the hop fields and their behaviour attracted the attention of the Church, who sought to improve morals, sanitation and conditions generally.
Duncan showed a wonderful series of slides showing contemporary scenes of hop growing and the pickers. Different areas used different systems for keeping account of each pickers work. For example mid-Kent used Tally sticks and Tallymen. Duncan gave an example of how a tally stick worked. Each stick was numbered so appertained to a single individual, was split in two and then notched for each bushel and for each ten bushels.
Hops were grown up poles, could make growers lots of money but also could be disastrous as hops are very susceptible to disease. East Kent used bushel baskets, calibrated for each bushel, other areas used cribs. Some tokens have numbers pencilled on them. This is a control as each picker was allocated a number and each basket had a number. The hops were then taken to the Oast house. It was important not to crush the hops. Hops were dried on a drying floor and then pressed into 2 ˝ cwt sacks. Hop factors would then come along and test the hops, using a special testing box.
Duncan then showed a series of tokens starting with ‘Tokes’ token of 1720 – one of the earliest known. He then showed some from the 1760s, very well struck and issued for regal amounts of 3d, 6d etc. After this the quality deteriorated rapidly, cast in lead, but still with issuers name, date and value, but soon to become very crude tokens, some barely discernable with rough figures or numbers. Some were punched rather than cast. Colthop Howletts farm punched 1, 2 and 4 into tin discs, others punched into copper. Later ones no longer have values in pence but rather the numbers refer to the number of bushels i.e. 1,6,12,30 etc. Robert Ridge Ellis issued zinc punched and painted with initials RRE and painted number (early 1800s). Cholera broke out amongst his pickers and it could only be controlled by giving the pickers beer to drink, otherwise they would drink water which often was contaminated by cholera – but was cheaper. Some tokens were drilled with holes representing bushels and these are very rare. Some, cast in bell metal, are very well made.
Duncan went on to show many different types of tokens, some attractive, some rare, some showing Oast houses or hop vines etc. Nearly all had initials – these mainly from the 1800s, some tokens were even made out of bone! Some on paper and card and few of these survive. A few tokens were issued in Hampshire and even Hereford and Worcester. Many tokens cannot be attributed to a specific farm or issuer, eventually tokens gave way to account books (1930s) so tokens died out in the 1940s. Also mechanisation took over the hop picking. Amongst the additional items shown was even a banknote issued on the Hop Pickers Bank!
Many thanks to Duncan for an unusual and interesting talk.
Annual Subscriptions
Will the few persons yet to pay their club subscriptions please do so at the next club meeting.
Autumn Social
On Saturday 24th November 18 members and guests enjoyed a really good evening social at the Cunning Man near Burghfield Common.
Future meetings
The subject for the January meeting is short talks by members and we need volunteers. Will members willing to give a talk please contact a committee member either at the December meeting, or by phone so that the committee can schedule the agenda for the evening. The talk can be on any numismatic related topic and need only last for 10 - 15 minutes.
The club auction is due to take place at the beginning of February. This may seem a long way off but you will need to start thinking about pieces you wish to include in the sale. The auction commission charge will be 10% of the hammer price.
Future Events.
Past Events.
In November 1977 the annual auction took place....
... Ten years later members were still holding an annual auction....
...... and ten years after that in 1997 the annual auction continued to be centre stage!