November 4th 2013
Next club meeting Monday 2nd December 2013.
Meetings are held
at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
NOTICES
- Please continue thinking about Short Talks for
January, and Auction lots for March!
- As many of you will know, Frank has been ill for
some time in the Royal Berks. On 25 November Val tells me he transferred
the Doninngton Residential and Nursing Home (see
link below). He has one session of his treatment to go in December before
recovery and assessment. He can receive visitors. I gave Val our best
wishes for a speedy recovery.
October Talk (continued!)
A further postscript to Tony Holmes’ talk about curious coins.
One coin illustrated was a late Roman monogram. Here are a few to puzzle over before the next meeting. These coins (AE4 size) belong to Anastasius, Marcian (2) and Zeno. Please sort them, out -
As you can see the (typical) obverses (last two pictures), are no help at all.
November Talk
At the November meeting David Powell advocated his preferred method of collecting 17th century tokens by feature, rather than by the traditional method of choosing a county and trainspotting your way through Williamson. He would have had no difficulty picking a county, so he said, for he was a keen family historian and two of his counties of origin had plentiful supplies of 17th century pieces; however, there were reasons why this approach did not satisfy him.
Firstly, few counties are as typical as one might think of the series as a whole; many might seem so, as indeed his own potential candidates of Somerset and Suffolk. For a start, those counties each have an extremely high percentage of farthings, Somerset more than any other; therefore, one part of the greater story would be lost. Somerset is also non-typical in respect of municipal issues, in which it and neighbouring Devon predominate. David expressed his preference for looking at the evolution of the series as a whole, including its interface with the adjacent lead series, and for this he felt it necessary to dispense with geographical bias.
There are other advantages also in favour of this approach. Choice is one; confining to a single county, one might visit a dealer’s stall where six or seven trays of 17th century are in evidence, and yet be confined to only two or three rows. Then, if a piece of interest were available, the condition might be poor; one of the banes of this series, and one which put the speaker off years ago when he first came across it. He might find himself in competition, also, with fellow token collectors of his acquaintance, all seeking the same small field of material; were he to bid against them at auction, he would often lose; and, finally, were he occasionally to win, he might find himself, at exorbitant cost, the proud owner of 0.6gm of illegible disk in some such delectable condition as near-mediocre. Such, he felt was not for him; the collectors of Somerset and Suffolk could rest safe from his rivalry.
Further, if neither rarity or geography are particular objects of interest, that not only opens the scope to a wider range of pieces but also allows such funds as might otherwise have been devoted to rarity to be channelled towards the acquisition of pieces in better condition; which was then demonstrated with an extensive display of (mostly) quite common material displaying a wide variety of subject matter.
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An enumeration of interesting features was punctuated throughout the talk by a number of statistical distributions, showing the spread of many of these features either by date or across the country; the main source for this being, inevitably, Williamson. For example, a succession of about 18-20 pieces in chronological order, covering the whole period bar the rare first year 1648, was accompanied by some charts which showed that 17th cent tokens started in the South-East but rapidly spread through the South, Midlands and East Anglia within three of four years, but that nine of the more distant English counties, and Wales, were much later, with start dates (for dated pieces) varying between 1656 and 1663.
The average for dated pieces varied between 1661.9 for Berkshire to 1667.8 for Monmouth; which given that the date range for the series as a whole, shows a considerable skew towards the later end of the range. Against that must be balanced, of course, the many undated pieces which are generally held to be rather earlier on average than the dated ones; the lack of a date being, again, a phenomenon which varies from county to county. Outside London the percentage of dated pieces in counties with a decent statistical sample varies from about 52% to 84%, with the majority in the middle of that range; however, London and Southwark are down around 35%-38%.
Another chart sought to investigate the balance of denominations, and was accompanied by a display of the ways in which the denomination was indicated; examples being shown to illustrate that II might mean two farthings in one case, but I/II three initials in another. A list was shown, by county, of the average value of tokens in farthing, to two decimal places; carrying from 1.04 in Somerset, to a massive 2.58 in Cheshire and 3.14 in North Wales. Apart from London, where they were struck mainly but not exclusively for the coffee houses, pennies appeared only in the late-starting counties above; but such were the figures in some of those counties, that the penny, scarce or non-existent elsewhere, must have been dominant.
Another feature which David enthused about, which have been written about before by others (e.g. Peter Preston-Morley, in his BNJ articles on Nottinghamshire and Buckinghamshire) but are now not often spoken of, were the would-be mintmarks; or, officina marks, as a devotee of ancients would call them. Are they relevant, or are they doodles? Most common of course is the 5-pointed star (mullet) usually associated with Ramage; followed perhaps by the various cinquefoils and hexafoils of the later period which Peter so carefully tried to sequence in BNJ. Examples of these were shown, and others besides; for example, the rose which appears briefly for a few months in late-1666 and 1667, features prominently on many (but not all) of the Taunton Constable pieces (Somerset 227-230), but not once in the BNJ article on Nottinghamshire (presumably, because nobody in the county ordered any tokens during that period).
Also shown were pieces which were clearly not of the main manufacturers; e.g. which derived from sources other than Ramage during the early period. One example was Jonathan Rowlett of Gedington (Northants 26), characterised by its wiry date numerals and the long radial lozenges around its rim. Other scarce marks included the rose of the same year, 1657, exhibited on London 2471 or later, the octafoils of Ralph Butcher of Bishopsgate (London 276) and William Hatfield of Kings Lynn (Norfolk 85), both dated 1666.
It was also demonstrated, with William Reynolds of Alcester (Warwicks 9-10) illustrated as an example, that issuers sometimes changed supplier.
As a measure of rarity, David proposed the proportion of pieces not accompanied by a specific price in Dickinson, i.e. for which the latter was unable to find sufficient evidence to be specific; however, as rarity is not an object of this type of collecting, only a chart of county frequencies was shown. The rural counties of Southern and Eastern England were shown to be the commonest, followed by the Midlands, with London, Southwark, the North of England and Wales, in approximately that order, bringing up the rear.
A distribution of towns issuing communal tokens, by county, was followed up with several slides illustrating the wide range of attractive designs which feature on municipal arms. Many of these pieces are comparatively cheap and so would offer an excellent and comparatively convenient subset to someone wanting either to dabble in the 17th century series on a limited scale or to try it out for the first time.
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The metallurgy of the 17th century token series is as varied as the designs themselves, in that manufacturers clearly just used whatever materials were to hand. No statistics offered here; just a number of pictures of carefully-selected pieces of different metallic construction taken under common lighting conditions. It was shown that pieces of similar colouring should be photographed together for best effect, and we moved through a succession of rich brass, medium brass, pale brass, medium copper and dark copper; the last mentioned colour, at a guess, being achieved by the addition of a trace of antimony as a hardening agent. The rich and medium brass looked particularly impressive, and the speaker indicated that he had bought one or two certain pieces specifically for their colouring. Amongst the pale brass was John Twigden, a Northampton glover whose halfpenny (Northants 85) is one of the very few pieces in the series to bear any Latin inscription.
Included at the end of the metallurgy section were a number of examples of contemporary crude lead, amongst which the main 17th century pieces are set and sometimes interlinked. There are a few lead pieces in Williamson, and the lesser-known and less-understood lead material both before and after very much provide the context in which the better known copper and brass pieces reside.
Ladies accounted for 3%-4% of the 17th century token issuers, and a number of examples were shown, including one who was (debatably) engaged in a specifically feminine occupation: knitting. Most of them were engaged in the usual familiar trades, store and inn keeping in particular, and no doubt found themselves in that position due to inheriting the livelihood of a deceased spouse. David had visited the site of one of the lady innkeepers (Rebecca Boldero of Ixworth) in 2002, almost a third of a millennium after her token issue of 1669 (Suffolk 200), and showed several modern pictures of her premises which suggested that much of the 17th century architecture still survived.
Another illustrated example of a piece issued by the proprietor of premises still standing was a fine one of the Mother Red Cap in Holloway, visited by Pepys. David had recently visited, with the intention of photographing the place in its current state; but finding the place very much rebuilt and down at heel, not to say much plagued by modern traffic, he decided against taking the picture.
Also on display on the ladies page was a piece of the enigmatic “We Three Sisters” of Needham Market (Suffolk 264); initials S, M and H, but otherwise unknown. This bears the phrase “Our Half Peny” on the reverse, as opposed to the usual “His” and “Hers” equivalents. It would be a challenge to get hold of the parish register and identify them.
After a brief comment on the forenames of the period, illustrated by distributions ex Williamson for comparison with the baby name columns of the present day, and showing pictures of tokens representing some rare examples, the talk moved, via the octagonal piece of Zachariah Lightwood (Staffs 103) and the heart-shape of William of Milton (Kent 418), from names to shape. The Lightwood piece was pierced, not at top or bottom, but at a random point in the main body of the design; which circumstance David used to advance a separate theory that, in both this and the Scottish communion token series, marks commonly taken as accidental damage are in fact often deliberately inflicted with a tool in order to indicate that the period of validity of the piece has expired. In other words, the damage is often part of their contemporary history, making the piece more desirable than would otherwise be the case; especially so, if the shape of the hole is irregular.
Comment was also made on the various straight and curved flan clips which often occur in 17th cent token manufacture, with the reasons diagrammatically explained and several examples illustrated.
An exhibition of armorial pieces then followed, first personal arms and then guild arms, moving on once the theme of trade had been established to the produce of those trades and the equipment with which they were conducted. This was accompanied by a statistical breakdown of the trades mentioned in Williamson, and David took the opportunity to point out that, with his style of collecting, you needed each significant device only once; thus, if you had one mercer’s piece, you needn’t bother with most of the other 289 unless the particular style or a secondary feature took your fancy. This part of the talk closed with a picture of Suffolk 44, an early transport token of the carrier Thomas Bull; an example of which David had taken a fancy to in Bury St.Edmunds Museum and had waited patiently for for four years until an example came his way.
Examination of the range of subject matter continued with a consideration of the various forms of lettering arrangements, including the famous initial-triads, and the different ways in which these are presented on the tokens. David bought one piece, for example, solely for its upper-barred pi-like “A”, and would particularly like to get a piece such as that of Elizabeth Bissell of Portsmouth (Hants 136) in which the wife’s initial, rather than the husband’s, comes first. Yet further examples of the different priorities which come with this style of approach.
One from of lettering which appears on 17th century tokens is lower-case script, with capital initial letters where appropriate. Several such pieces were shown, together with a date distribution chart which suggested that they commenced c.1664; geographically, however, they are rather inconclusively spread, although quite a number of counties have few or none. Williamson lists 13 dated pieces for 1664 and 20+ for each of 1666-69; but one only, the scarce Ferdinando Downing of Ewell (Surrey 72) for 1665. Indication that the manufacturer was adversely affected by the plague, perchance? One of David’s ancestors lived in Ewell from 1780 to 1796, and he showed an early 20th century postcard depicting the premises, built c.1577, from which his ancestor had traded as a merchant. Without any other particular interest in Surrey, he had speculatively acquired specimens of the two Ewell pieces on the offchance that one of their issuers had operated from the selfsame building; an hypothesis of which he has vague hopes of being able to verify or deny.
Letters were followed by merchant marks, that enigmatic evolution (or is it precursor?) of the monogram which was used so often to distinguish ownership c.1350-1650. Usage of merchant marks was fading by the mid-17th century, but Williamson lists some 75 or so, a number of examples of which were shown. Play on letters was then followed by play on words, puns being known on a number of pieces of the series, of which the key of Stephen Lock of Gosport (Hants 72) and the bird of Edward of that name of Colyton (Devon 55) are amongst the most familiar. The speaker’s favourite was the piece of James Partridge of The Mitre, Royston (Herts 165), in which the usual Ramage mullet had been skilfully merged with the top of the mitre to form a bird which might just be…. a partridge, possibly?
A number of pieces which demonstrate political loyalty were next shown; king’s heads, roses and the like being amongst the devices most popularly chosen. It was remarked that certain areas, e.g.Durham, had an extremely high proportion of such pieces; although, please remember that a proportion of kings’ heads do relate to pubs, rather than the monarchy! Most poignant was Unknown 73: “Fear God, honor the King; Touch not mine Anointed”. The date on the later, you might guess: 1660, the date of the Restoration.
Word forms, and their possible ambiguity, are another form of interest in this series; for example, is it immediately obvious that Devon 280 is the issue of David Hart of Exeter St.Thomas, rather than Thomas Hart of Exeter St.Davids, given that the city had parishes, and still has stations, of both names? Another example was the placename “Redrif” (Surrey 278), which is actually from Rotherhithe rather than the more obvious guess, Redruth. Placename spellings are many and various on the series, and the various older forms again offer an interesting theme for study.
Reference was also made to the efforts of collectors’ to try and win reattributions of pieces to their own county, quoting Ron Kerridge’s spirited argument at a recent Token Congress in favour of Henry Barnes (Herts 189) coming from Steyning rather than Stevenage. Williamson actually says Baines, and two more examples were shown to illustrate that that standard reference is occasionally wrong: Anne Atkins of Sandwich, where a peacock is described as a carnation, and John Batwell of Tempe Bar (London 3032), whose name Williamson renders as Battell. The Atkins error has persisted through several successive works since it was first published in the Numismatic Chronicle in 1862, but for those familiar with peacocks on Roman denarii it is plain to see.
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Michael Dickinson’s remarks in his 1986 book about how seven or eight different styles of beading exist and can be used for the approximate dating of undated pieces are, like the mintmarks mentioned earlier, well known but now relatively little commented on. David reminded the audience that these were still of interest and were amongst the features he looked out for, after which he then went on to briefly illustrate examples of several of them.
Next followed a number of Williamson’s unknowns, the pieces which are either of unidentifiable origin or which sit on the fringes of the series. He showed several, including a couple which had obvious ecclesiastical links and were presumably communion tokens, charity tokens or the like; accompanied by the enigmatic Devon 134, out of series in Williamson, which is probably of similar ilk. Debate now favours that the reputed publican, Mary Moore of Exeter, was probably a church attributed to a saint of that name; however, whether pub or communion token, “Drink ye all of this” is probably an appropriate inscription.
In conclusion, David reiterated the foremost point of his original argument in favour of feature-collecting; i.e. that given equal assets to start with, the average condition of a feature collection was likely to be considerably higher than that of a county collection. The last of many pieces to illustrate this was a fine halfpenny of Thomas Crapp of Bridgwater (Somerset 55), with the suggestion that with the advocated approach it need be the only Crapp piece in one’s collection!
Club
Secretary.