 |
|
 
| ||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
People nowadays take coin of the realm so much for granted as the only physical way of paying for things that many will not realise that alternative coinages were still in circulation around the country as late as the 1950s. One particular family of businesses that made great use of them was the Co-operative Societies, and we can remember (when very young!) queuing with Grandma when she took her Co-op sharebook to change real money into Co-op tokens (known as "checks" in that part of Scotland) and then used the tokens to buy goods at the adjacent counters, or to pay Co-op delivery roundsmen for commodities such as bread, milk and coal. The sharebook recorded the value of tokens bought, and was thus the basis of her "divi" - the famous Co-op dividend paid to members at intervals. But these weren't the only users of tokens - in fact tokens have been in use for something like 400 years, and for a variety of trades. In a sense we still have them for things like company parking barriers, some car-wash units, and so on, and no doubt people can identify other uses still in operation - but they don't really act as coinage. The Dudley area seems to have been an active user of tokens, though we haven't yet had time to look into the history. But what sparked our interest in the subject was the photo below of the two sides of a token possessed by Malcolm Johnson in Australia. He'd just supplied us with images of two very attractive Richard Rayner paintings for our Rayner section, and as a follow-on sent this picture as well. | ||||||||||
 Malcolm believes that the trade tokens were issued in three specific periods, and has owned or seen some of the examples below. But since he contacted us, we've also come across a few for ourselves, so his original list has been added to - though we usually don't know who the traders were (or what their business was). We'd still appreciate enlightenment on that.
18th Century - Issued 1787-1797 Pennies:
Halfpennies: Most of these tokens had plain edges, but the Shepherd version appeared with both plain and milled edges. One does wonder about some of the words on these tokens. After all, the French Revolution began in 1789 and it was not long before we were fighting them in a war that with minor breaks continued until 1815. Yet Britannia and the dismayed lion could both suggest antipathy to the British government, and who are the "we" in "we were born free..."? Farthings:
19th Cent. Mainly 1811-1815 Pennies: Below, two examples of the one penny token issued by or on behalf of James Wilkinson, vice maker, the first one being drawn to my attention by David Clare, the source of the old Dudley postcards on previous pages. The second one, offered on Ebay in 2008, is interesting on two counts. First, its very dark colour (sometimes seen with other tokens) and second the anvil is reversed even though the penny has the same year on it.
We asked why this reversal might have come about, and Malcolm Johnson has suggested that the most likely reason for the reversed anvil is that those early dies, used to strike the tokens, frequently shattered from being repeatedly struck in the press. The engraver making a new one would have copied a struck token rather than the broken die - and forgotten to reverse what the token displayed. He also points out that the tops of the '1's in the date differ, so different date punches were used – in fact it was possibly a different engraver. Reversal was apparently a common mistake also made by forgers, who often put some or all of the lettering on backwards. And sign-writers have this problem of working backwards when they write the shop-owner's name on the inside of a window - for example the gold writing that was once common on the windows of solicitors and similar professions. As our own addition to Malcolm's list of potentials for error, in 1977 we visited a very delapidated manor house in Papworth St. Agnes near Huntingdon, where the family crest had long ago been cast in plaster and affixed to all the main ceilings. The crest had two large letters, W and H from memory, which were a fortunate pairing as they had been reversed on every crest without most people noticing the error. Although the craftsman is thought to have been illiterate that may be incorrect, and it may instead have been another simple reversal error. These various tokens were followed by others in Victorian times and onward; from all sorts of place like pubs, co-ops and transport - and even a 3d token to use the Dudley Corporation Baths - see the example below found by Malcolm. The lettering on the coin looks Victorian, but the value may be on the high side. From recollection (always to be treated with caution!), going to the baths in the 1950s/early 1960s cost sixpence for children. 
Going back to the query on the first token illustrated, it isn't clear whether "W.B. Andrews, Dudley" is the manufacturer (as we now believe) or the trader, and there is no indication of the businesses where it would be accepted or the commodities it could be exchanged for. We haven't traced W.B. Andrews so far, so we're either looking in the wrong place or the company died or got taken over. However, we have had further information that says the token could date back to the late 1800s or more likely the early 1900s - but is possibly as late as 1950 from the style and metal content. A collector notes that it is extremely unusual to see "England" appear on a token intended for use in this country, so this may mean it was actually intended for use overseas, though that doesn't have to be the case. Lastly, "arguroid silver" is so rare that even the full Oxford English Dictionary hasn't heard of it, so it could be a trade name or possibly a transitional name that soon fell out of favour. But an English friend of Malcolm's has said that since argentum is Latin for silver, and "oid" is a suffix which means combines or resembles, the likely meaning is a metal that resembles and/or includes silver. Just to make the point more obvious, the token then adds the word silver. The use of the word "Registered" suggests that arguroid silver is a metal process with sufficient originality to be patented. Malcolm has come across several tokens, with five different values: 4 over 6d [sixpence], 4 over 1/- [one shilling], 1 over 1/6 [1 shilling and sixpence as shown above], 2 over 2/-, 3 over 2/6. They measure approx. 30mm and look like cupro-nickel, but are obviously (from the comment above) arguroid silver, and he wonders if anyone here knows anything about what they were used for. One suggestion already is that they are barbers tokens, since many were made for that purpose. Some barbers tokens in Australian usage had the individual seat stamped on them where there were several barbers in a salon. In this usage, the barber gave the client a token (again known as a check) to take to the cashier, and this made it possible to tally up the work done by each barber at the end of the day. But the list of other known Dudley tokens above doesn't include barbers at all. And for my own peace of mind, can someone also explain what the purpose of the "1 over", "2 over" lettering is for? Answers welcome to Dudley Mall at the email address at the bottom of this page. Thank you! Text: Harry Drummond |
 | Remainder copyright © 2008 Dudley Mall. |  |
Read more about:
dudley and tokens
Secure
FTPS (SSL)
on the planet
Go FTP FREE
