Essex 1793 half penny token D&H-11B
This specimen was lot 73847 in Stack's Bowers Collector's Choice sale (Costa Mesa, CA, November 2023), where it sold for $120. The catalog description[1] noted, "GREAT BRITAIN. Trade Tokens. Essex. Dunmow. Copper 1/2 Penny Token, 1793. PCGS MS-64 Brown. D&H-11B. Obverse: Flitch of bacon hanging downward; Reverse: Civic coat-of-arms of Dunmow." Dunmow, marked on modern maps as Great Dunmow, is a village of approximately 10,000 people. Wikipedia comments,
"The town is known for its four-yearly ritual of the 'Flitch Trials', in which couples must convince a jury of six local bachelors and six local maidens that, for a year and a day, they have never wished themselves unwed. If successful, the couple are paraded along the High Street and receive a flitch of bacon. The custom is ancient, and is mentioned in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales."
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: copper.
Catalog reference: D&H-15.
- Conder, James. An arrangement of Provincial Coins, tokens, and medalets issued in Great Britain, Ireland, and the colonies, within the last twenty years, from the farthing to the penny size. Ipswich: G. Jermyn, 1798.
- Dalton, Richard, and Samuel H. Hamer. The Provincial Token Coinage of the 18th Century. 1910-1917.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio and Jeremy Bostwick, November 2023 World Collectors Choice Online Auction - Ancient & World Coins, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers Galleries, Inc., 2023.
Link to:
- Inverness 1793 half penny token D&H-1A Mackintosh Inglis & Wilson
- Lancashire 1793 half penny token D&H-107b, Liverpool
- Middlesex 1793 half penny token D&H-833a Spence's
- Middlesex 1793 half penny token D&H-834 Spence's
- North Wales 1793 farthing token D&H-15a
- North Wales 1793 half penny token D&H-72
- Staffordshire 1793 half penny token D&H-13A, Leek
- Warwickshire 1793 half penny token D&H-50 Birmingham
- Coins and currency dated 1794
- return to Conder tokens