A 17th Century Token Die Engraver’s Conundrum – Jo. Broxup of Manchester – Gary Oddie & Nigel Clark

This note presents a recently discovered seventeenth century token issued by John Broxup of Manchester. The reverse legend is the latin Motto Quicunque Vult. As with most tokens and coins of the period the legend is engraved upper case and U is replaced with V. This leads to a difficulty with the word Vult which should be rendered VVLT which looks and reads oddly and the engraver has chosen to render the upper case U as such. Apart from tokens with legends in script, this is the only known appearance of an upper case U in this series.

Apart from a short period in the 1730s and 1740s, the regal coinage also replaces U with a Latinised V up to the 1790s. Most recently this difficulty has been avoided on the new coinage of Charles III by the use of a hybrid English-Latin legend – CHARLES III D.G.REX F.D.