● Host Society for the 2011 BANS Congress to be held in Southport

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Tokens

For many years, tokens were the Cinderellas of the numismatic world. Not considered, either by the authorities or by collectors, as real money, they led a shadowy existence, unrecognised and uncelebrated. Pardon? Yes, uncelebrated, because tokens are in every respect the money of the people, vernacular coinage, issued to meet the needs of every day life when those in charge of the nation’s business took no interest in ‘the lower orders of the people.’

All that has now changed!

Merchant Countermarked Dollars

● 'Merchant Countermarked Dollars of the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries' has been written by Society Member Eric C. Hodge. The desperate shortage of silver currency experienced throughout the United Kingdom at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Centuries led a number of merchants and manufacturers to countermark Spanish Dollars, pieces of eight, which were readily available on the bullion market, and use these as tokens. This fascinating paper is well illustrated by photographs of some very rare pieces.

Public House Tokens

● This presentation fby Bob Lyall features a visit to the pub, as represented by the large numbers of tokens issued by landlords and publicans throughout the UK from the middle of  the nineteenth century up to the time of the First World War. Bob has produced a most interesting introductory guide to the types and purposes of these tokens - as far as they are known - and the paper is illustrated by photographs of a range of typical items, including several from our own locality.

The Anglesey Halfpenny Tokens of 1790

● This paper, by Chris Leather, is an examination of the Anglesey Halfpennies of 1790, a little-known part of the enormous output of tokens made in the period 1787-1791 for the Anglesey Mines Company of Thomas Williams. But all is not what it seems: the 1790 pattern halfpence struck by Matthew Boulton take pride of place as the world's first truly modern coins.

Orange Dots

There are hotspot links to other pages throughout the site, marked with orange dots

Click anywhere you see an orange dot to follow the link!

Wilkinson’s Penny Token?

● Wilkinson's Penny Token? considers which of the thirty listed varieties of the Iron Master's 1787 halfpenny tokens can reasonably be considered to be the very first. And, indeed, whether this first token might have been the elusive Wilkinson Penny!

The Colchester Tokens of 1794

● This note looks at the halfpenny tokens issued in 1794 by Charles Heath, Bay (or baize) Maker of Colchester, which show a baize weaver sitting at his loom, and a pleasing representation of Colchester Castle. Dalton and Hamer list two distinct dies for this issue, but were they right?

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