Tokens and Jettons

This Blog is presented in four parts, reproducing (with minor edits) previously published notes from the past decade. It begins with a query as to why a small group of New York Restaurant tokens have denominations in shillings and pence. A few years later, with no progress having been made, the request was repeated. A catalogue of the known issuing establishments and the denominations issued is then given. And finally, thanks to a reply to one of the earlier requests, a possible explanation is found as to why tokens denominated in shillings and pence appeared in New York restaurants in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Mint had issued no sensible quantities of silver coin since the late 1750s. In 1811-12 many tradesmen and bankers issued silver tokens, sufficiently light to avoid the melting pot, and these worked hard and went, in a small way, to satisfy the needs of the issuers and their customers. Some of these silver tokens received countermarks. The survival of three worn tokens from three different issuers, but all bearing the same countermark, gives insight into the state of the circulating silver tokens  around the time of the silver Recoinage of 1816-17. If anyone has any silver coins, tokens, slap tokens or foreign silver bearing this exact countermark, the author would be pleased to hear.

This Blog presents practical experiments relating to the manufacture of seventeenth-century tokens. New token dies have been cut, a screw press set up with realistic weights added to the arms, blanks cut and tokens struck. The experiment has been instrumented so that the die movement and striking force can be measured. The force is measured to be about 20 tonnes and with this set-up the natural frequency allows a token to be struck every four seconds. The practicalities and costs of seventeenth-century token manufacture are discussed.

This is a second supplement to Bedfordshire Tokens, Tickets, Checks and Passes. These are mostly time/tool/pay checks from the county’s heavier industries in Bedford and Luton. The most important additions are two specimens of an anonymous lead token found at Pertenhall, at the very north of Bedfordshire, on the border with Northamptonshire and the old Huntingdonshire. The design of the token is unusual in that it bears a head in profile. The tokens are from the same moulds, found a few metres apart over a two year period. This is unlikely to be a coincidence and suggests that these lead tokens are of very local manufacture and use.

This note adds six new cardboard advertising tokens and an unprinted blank to the 16 previously published. The card tokens are in the Royal Mint Museum collection. Background notes are presented for all of the pieces. The final card penny is shown to be a self-advertisement for the novelty advertising company of D. Harper & Co. of Holloway Road, London. Contemporary adverts confirm that this company was a manufacturer of card advertising pennies with images of the monarch on one side.