A farthing token of Wapping, in East London, back to 1650.

[JeandAcre]

Finding this on UK ebay was just too much fun.

I really like all of the 17th-century English farthing and ha'p'ny tokens, especially for how the diversity of the motifs anticipates the Conder tokens of the later 18th century.  (Those run to being halfpennies, struck on a much broader flan, corresponding to official, royal issues.) 

But I always have to love it when people can fit this much content onto an even smaller module.  ...And the ones as early as the Pariiamentary /Cromwellian period are only more fun than the ones from the early phases of the Restoration, into the 1670s.  From here, mainly just for their ongoing novelty value.

Wapping, farthing token issued by Mr. T and Mrs. E. Dry, 16[still not over this:]50.

Obv.  In field: T (rose) E [/] DRY.  *IN . WAPPIN . I650.

Rev. Three sugar loaves.  (No, that's Not heraldry; it's from a shop sign!)  (From 6 o'clock:) *AT . THE . 3 . SVGER . LOA[V]ES .

I have exactly nothing in print for references for any of this, whether for any phase of the 17th century or for Conders.  For this example, I was moved to try a Google search, instead of the more routine ACSearch.  This time, it looks as if my instincts were right.  This is what showed up. 

https://c17thlondontokens.com/2015/02/15/mr-dry-at-the-three-sugar-loaves-in-wapping/#:~:text=A farthing tradesman's token issued,bank of the River Thames. 

https://www.intoxicatingspaces.org/2020/12/02/exploring-londons-intoxicating-spaces-through-mudlarking/ 

 Yes, at least implicitly, you get both a Parliamentarian-era token, in circulation as late as Pepys's diary.  Tell me anything different; I think I scored.

 

Edited January 22 by JeandAcre

[Furryfrog02]

That's so cool! Not something I've ever seen before either!

[Kali]

Neat find!

[John Conduitt]

Great token. These are quite a bit scarcer than most of the Conders, or at least in passable condition. Not easy to find on eBay!

I also have a few from Wapping. The businesses there seemed to make quite a lot, even though it was practically in the countryside back then. This one is a little later, right in the middle of Pepys' time and the Great Fire of London. Pepys seemed to spend most of his time in the pub, so he may have gone out to Wapping for a beer while London burned.

Quite a lot of the tokens say 'His/Her Half(e) Pen(n)y'. I believe they say this because at the time, there was a misapprehension that 'Joseph Stent, His Halfpenny' was the correct grammatical form of 'Joseph Stent's Halfpenny'. But it has been shown this is not how the apostrophe was derived so all these tokens are incorrect, like my grandmother over-pronouncing her vowels to try to sound more educated but appearing less so in the process.

Joseph Stent Token, 1666

Wapping, London. Copper, 1.56g. Wheatsheaf in twisted-wire inner circle; *JOSEPH*STENT*AT*THE* around. Rev: HIS HALF.PENY.1666 in twisted-wire inner circle; *NEW*CRAIN*IN*WAPPEN* (Boyne and Williamson 1994). The Wheatsheaf was probably a public house.

[panzerman]

Nice token! I still have my Canadian tokens 1788-1859. I always found tokens interesting to collect.

[ChrisB]

These early tokens are fun to collect. Here are a couple of mine.

 

 

 

[seth77]

I bet no one wants to see some Crusader tokens.

[JeandAcre]

@seth77, Stop Being Evil!  Of Course we (no doubting it) do!  You're cordially invited to post 'em here, even as underserved as the Medieval section is (Teacher, I Raise My Hand).

[JeandAcre]

Oops, I just paid for this one, from another very cool guy on UK ebay.

Obv.  Cow (not an ox? why not? the British public demand to know!)  *THE MA[Y]OR OF [...]

Rev.  C O /1652.  [...] OXFORD TOKEN.

Nope, I'm not done researching this, even online.  (I have a couple of references on the Enlish Civil War in print; nothing comprehensive enough to cover this.)  After Oxford was captured by the Parliamenatrians in 1646, there's a gap (from Wiki) in the mayors, specifically during this period.  ...As in, What, was it under martial law?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Oxford 

...So what gives?  ...Watch this space, I guess.

Meanwhile, @John Conduitt, I truly need your observation,

"Quite a lot of the tokens say 'His/Her Half(e) Pen(n)y'. I believe they say this because at the time, there was a misapprehension that 'Joseph Stent, His Halfpenny' was the correct grammatical form of 'Joseph Stent's Halfpenny'. But it has been shown this is not how the apostrophe was derived so all these tokens are incorrect, like my grandmother over-pronouncing her vowels to try to sound more educated but appearing less so in the process."

Yes, I'm busted; I always assumed that this was an original construct from the earlier phases of Modern English, rather than an overcompensating malapropism.  Huge thanks for that!  (Yes, we've all had grandmothers ...and it has to be time to shut up!)         :<}

Edited January 22 by JeandAcre

[JeandAcre]

Here's a late-breaking update on the one of Oxford (above).

Back to who was mayor in 1652, I just did what I should have done in the first place, and googled it.  Summarily got this.  Yow.  If nothing else, it was easier than wading through a search in Google Books.  

https://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/mayors/1603_1714/miller_richard_1652.html 

There were two mayors, serving from 1651-September 1652, and from then into 1653, respectively.  The first was Matthew Langley, a tanner.  He was swiftly followed by Richard Miller, a fellmonger, or dealer in hides.  Traditionally, the hides involved ran to being sheepskin, but the trade could also involve the preparation of hides for tanning, implicitly including cowhide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellmonger 

On the brilliant website for Oxford history, the listings for both mayors note that Langley and Miller may have been partners; documenting their close business association as of 1655. 

Aggregately, what I'm wanting to get from this is that on the farthing of 1652, the cow is the shopsign of the first mayor, Langley.  ...Another shopsign, on another Cromwell-era farthing token.  I'm needing this the more I think about it.

One last fun thing about both mayors is that, as of June !662, following the Restoration of Charles II, both were removed from their remaining posts in the city Council for their 'parliamentary leanings.'

[John Conduitt]

33 minutes ago, JeandAcre said:

Here's a late-breaking update on the one of Oxford (above).

Back to who was mayor in 1652, I just did what I should have done in the first place, and googled it.  Summarily got this.  Yow.  If nothing else, it was easier than wading through a search in Google Books.  

https://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/mayors/1603_1714/miller_richard_1652.html 

There were two mayors, serving from 1651-September 1652, and from then into 1653, respectively.  The first was Matthew Langley, a tanner.  He was swiftly followed by Richard Miller, a fellmonger, or dealer in hides.  Traditionally, the hides involved ran to being sheepskin, but the trade could also involve the preparation of hides for tanning, implicitly including cowhide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellmonger 

On the brilliant website for Oxford history, the listings for both mayors note that Langley and Miller may have been partners; documenting their close business association as of 1655. 

Aggregately, what I'm wanting to get from this is that on the farthing of 1652, the cow is the shopsign of the first mayor, Langley.  ...Another shopsign, on another Cromwell-era farthing token.  I'm needing this the more I think about it.

One last fun thing about both mayors is that, as of June !662, following the Restoration of Charles II, both were removed from their remaining posts in the city Council for their 'parliamentary leanings.'

Nice research. Careful you don't end up getting hundreds of mayor-related tokens 🤣

The R, I think, stands for the moneyer David Ramage, a Scotsman and competitor of Peter Blondeau who trained under Nicholas Briot. He made lots of tokens (at the Tower) but you don't usually get the R.

Edited January 26 by John Conduitt

[JeandAcre]

Thanks, only most especially, for your epiphanous reference to Ramage, @John Conduitt.  Just mention Briot, and I'm sitting up in my chair.

Edited January 26 by JeandAcre
'Moat.' No further comment ensues.

[JeandAcre]

Right, in reference to another accomplished engraver, in a different but related capacity, there's this.  It's from this post

 

But I need to copy and paste the most relevant part, anyway.

Here are the dealer's pics, with some of his description.

Beautifully engraved portraits of James I and his son Charles, heir apparent and soon-to-become King Charles I, on this silver gaming token, originally a coin of the realm, most likely a shilling. It was probably made in the London workshop of Simon van de Passe, master engraver, shortly before he moved to Copenhagen as royal engraver and designer of medals to the Danish Royal family.  Diameter: 26.3mm Weight: 2.63g.  [...Close enough for the mere plausibility of this having begun life as a shilling.]

One thing I need about this is how James I has a ruff collar (like Elizabeth), while Charles has a lace one, as in his shilling as king.  It's a funly visual demonstration of the generational transition.  For me, it immediately evokes the literary shift, from Shakespeare to the Metaphysical Poets.  (Right, I'm kind of a fan of both.) 

I'd only seen these van de Passe pieces in person once, at the biggest coin show I ever attended, in the late 1980's.  The dealer just might have been Spink; you have my solemn word and bond that, thanks to the very congenial staff, visiting the booth was very educational.  (Another lasting memory is having seen 'my' very first facing-portrait penny of Edward the Confessor.)  But at the time, all I was able to show up with was something to either side of $20.  Buying this example was yet another instance of it's being a moot point how cheap anything was when you didn't have the money.

Anyway, as a student of the art of the period, I really need how this evokes yet a third kind of engraving; early copperplates.  Not to mention the attendant convergence of the media.  The net aesthetic effect is why English speakers need to thank Germans for the word, 'Gestalt.'

(Late-breaking edit:) Since I've been in correspondence with both of them only over the last few days, and they're both demonstrably solid people, it eventually landed on me to include links to the sellers of the Elizabeth shilling (yes, his English is Very, Very ...No, Really, Very Good), and of the 'School of van de Passe' counter (no, his English is just that, but very unpretentious; if American is your first language, you'll easily get by.)

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/194948932253

Meanwhile, if it just so happened that you'd already looked at the whole post, @GregH's own pics of the Charles I shilling --demonstrably better than the ones from the dealer, which he also sent-- are kind of called for.  Instead of finding the post, here are the .jpgs, from the thumb drive with half my life on it.  --Thanks again, Greg.  As in, Lots.

 

[JeandAcre]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, @GregH.  (I'm going to do an overhaul of the 'Elizabeth I shilling, and other fun stuff' OP, which will include your shilling of Charles I, and a couple of other, very recent, no less cool early Stuart acquisitions.  ...Following some improbably propitious news on the financial front.)

For this minute, though, here's another farthing.  Restoration; but to be any better, it would have to be from a tavern in London, instead of a (?) baker in Cambridge. 

(I think it was the BM website, instead of the Fitzwilliam, that noted the bakery.  No pics, but I'm assuming you could tllt the main motif 45 degrees to get some loaves of bread.  ...Which already has me thinking about bread, never mind cheese, being made in England as long ago as that.  Pause: pick even one of the two, and ask yourself, 'how long could I live on that, all by itself?')

(Edit: May the record show that this OP has just undergone an ostensibly (suddenly I'm seeing the Jack Nicholson Joker, laughing at me) comprehensive overhaul: 

 

Edited January 29 by JeandAcre

[JeandAcre]

Here's the latest one.  I always liked the ship ship leaving port, and reflexively gravitated to the earliest ones.  This is more worn than one could have liked, but it's even, honest wear, with the legends still clear, and the port still showing one row of masonry.  (Reverse first.)

Bristol kept issuing these until 1670.  The page from Numista (below) gives what looks from here like the full range of dates and variants.  There's no indication of either a mayor or, for instance, a business owner; the 'C B' on the obverse merely stands for 'Civitas Bristol.'  Triangulating that with their continuation from the Protectorate into the Restoration, they seem to have been a civic issue in some stricter sense than the run of them from either period.  

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces121783.html

But, going back to @John Conduitt's surprising and enlightening post above

On 1/26/2024 at 2:53 PM, John Conduitt said:

Nice research. Careful you don't end up getting hundreds of mayor-related tokens 🤣

The R, I think, stands for the moneyer David Ramage, a Scotsman and competitor of Peter Blondeau who trained under Nicholas Briot. He made lots of tokens (at the Tower) but you don't usually get the R.

the Numista page identifies the engraver (instant edit: of this issue) as Thomas Rawlins, yet another student of Briot!  It has a link to the article on Rawlins in Wiki.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Rawlins

...Maybe this should be prefaced with what the BBC and NPR sometimes say in their reportage: 'the following may be disturbing to some listeners.'  But looking up the history of Bristol led to a frankly embarrassing reality check.  As in, regarding the case of a major port city of the period, what was I thinking?  Answer: not enough.  (When people start some inane statement with the phrase, 'Well, we thought...', I like to finish it with, '--no you didn't.'  Well, this time, I'm busted.) 

Bristol's involvement in the slave trade goes back to (as Samuel L. Jackson said in Jurassic Park, 'hang on to your butts':) c. 1480.  Right, accelerating with the foundation of the American colonies in the 17th century, and reaching a crescendo with the 'Triangular Trade' in the 18th.  Thank you, a convergence of technological advancement, and cultural barbarism, reminiscent of, for instance, the Nazi invasions of Poland and France.  Superior tanks and bombers? works for us.

Since this has already gone here, I need to add that England had lots of vocal abolitionists by the later 18th century.  Notably including the Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge et al.), and Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson before that.  --Boswell reports that when the subject of slavery was introduced, he would get apoplectic.  Right, as a Tory who may never have entirely gotten over his early Jacobite leanings, Johnson was seen as a pronounced political conservative in his own time.  But he's the one who, as of c. 1770, wrote (near paraphrase:) 'Why is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?'

 

 

Edited February 9 by JeandAcre

[John Conduitt]

It's an interesting token. Although normally, especially in the 18th century, tokens tend to feature the anti-slavery activists (and anti-establishment voices in general). William Wilberforce has a few medals of him, although I don't think Thomas Clarkson does.

[JeandAcre]

Thanks for expanding the context, @John Conduitt.  I could only wish there was a Conder of Wilberforce; it's an easy guess that the medals are spendy.  From too long ago to have dealers's pics, I do have a Conder with the 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother' motif, along with one of two posthumously commemorating Johnson.