17th Century British Merchants Tokens

The body of a short article published in the Token Corresponding Society Bulletin for December 2016 (Vol. 12, no. 1), numbered there pages 24-32. This article researches a 17th century token issuer from Great Yarmouth, Stephen Tracey, who was also a Pilgrim Father.

A discussion of Norfolk's 17th century token series and recent research on attribution and distribution by the Norfolk Token Project.  Published in Norfolk Archaeology 2015. Note: Sadly the maps have been reproduced at a very small scale and the font has been inexplicably made smaller partway into the article. Both these issues were pointed out to the editors at proof stage but no action was taken.

A paper published in The Glaven Historian 16, pages 11-22, discussing the token issues produced at Cley on the North Norfolk coast and the circulation patterns of Cley tokens and other tokens in the Cley area. The paper runs from page 11-22 in the PDF

This article, published in the Great Yarmouth Local History and Archaeological Society journal for 2018 (pp.83-7), looks at a witchcraft trial in Great Yarmouth and a token issuer who was the brother of the alleged victim of witchcraft. Elizabeth Bradwell was hanged for practicing maleficia against John Moulton, brother of the token issuer Thomas Moulton, in 1645.

This paper looks at the lives of two men who were intimately connected with the Norwich Corporation farthing tokens. One, Christopher Jay, was responsible for commissioning them in 1667 and the other, John Melchior, for buying them as scrap metal after they had been recalled in 1672/3.

Blog post from the University of Exeter Economic and Social History Blog: http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/economicandsocialhistory/blogdiscussiontimetable202122/squaredealingeisbestadvertisingtrustworthinessthrough17thcenturytradetokens/

Norwich had a large number of seventeenth-century token issuers; the total of 91 is the highest of any provincial city in England. These are all of copper, bronze or brass; no named lead examples have thus far been recorded from the city but two examples found close to Norwich and recorded with Norfolk's Identification and Recording Service probably had their origin there. Neither names its issuer, simply combining a triad of initials on one side with a device on the other, but they clearly belong to the seventeenth century and must be roughly contemporary with their copper alloy counterparts.

First page of publication - pre-publication draft available on request.

This paper uses Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) data created by David Williams and others to take a novel approach to identifying
trade networks in the mid 17th century. The approach utilises a distinctive object type, the trade token, and the paper also increases our
understanding of token use. The paper provides a brief introduction to tokens issued and used in Surrey between 1648 and 1672.
Findspot evidence is then used to examine three questions. Firstly, can we use tokens to identify trade flows between Surrey and
neighbouring counties? Secondly, does the evidence of token circulation support claims of the dominance of the River Thames over Surrey’s
trade? Thirdly, does the distribution of tokens from different towns provide evidence of people’s decisions about accepting and using tokens?

First page of chapter, chapter (and book) available to download, free from https://numismatics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Tokens_ed_crisa_gkikaki_rowan.pdf

This chapter focuses on the trade tokens issued in the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century and attempts to address a fundamental question about these tokens that is only partially approached in the existing literature, specifically why certain individuals, and not others, issued tokens. While any ‘explanation’ is always a difficult prospect, particularly an understanding of the multiple effects that may motivate an individual, I feel it is worth attempting to move beyond the collection of ‘facts’ about individuals and their tokens to try to recognise broader patterns and study them in a more analytical way. After a brief introduction to this class of tokens for those unfamiliar with them, I will review and expand existing explanations for the issuing of these tokens and try to understandsome of the motivations we can look at for any individual. Then, in a more detailed analysis, I shall try to characterise token issuers and attempt to identify evidence for their motivations.

The Norfolk Token Project (NTP) continues to research the county's seventeenthcentury token issuers. A very few are unnamed, with only the issuer's initials (and in two cases those of his wife) present. Here, I offer some suggestions for the identities of four of those issuers, two from Kings Lynn and two from Norwich.

William Wood's PVNCHANELLA token is fascinating in its own right, as it depicts the well-known figure of Punch. It also appears to be one of the earliest surviving illustrations of Punch known in Britain, which is of particular interest and importance to the history of puppetry.