Middlesex (1795) half penny token D&H-716
This specimen was lot 32501 in Stack's Bowers Collector's Choice sale (Costa Mesa, CA, May 2024), where it sold for $384. The catalog description[1] noted, "GREAT BRITAIN. Trade Tokens. Middlesex. Spence's Copper 1/2 Penny Token, ND (ca. 1790s). NGC MS-64 Red Brown. Obverse: Ass carrying bushels symbolizing rent and taxes; Reverse: three lines of text within surrounding legend. Edge: SPENCE DEALER IN COINS LONDON. Struck to crisp definition and exhibiting much original red-brown coloration that is highlighted by glossy luster." Wikipedia comments, "Thomas Spence (2 July [O.S. 21 June] 1750 – 8 September 1814) was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land and a democratic equality of the sexes. Spence was one of the leading revolutionaries of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment, in 1814." He is responsible for the issue of many of the tokens in Conder's book.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: copper.
Catalog reference: D&H-716.
- 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. reprinted 2015 by Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, PA.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio and Jeremy Bostwick, May 2024 World Collectors Choice Online Auction, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers Galleries, Inc., 2024.
Link to:
- Middlesex (1790-94) half penny token D&H-717, "Rouse Britannia!"
- Middlesex (1794) half penny token D&H-719, Spence's
- Middlesex 1795 half penny token D&H-720, Spence's
- Middlesex 1795 half penny token D&H-726, Spence's, BRITISH LIBERTY DISPLAYED
- Middlesex 1795 half penny token D&H-729b, Spence's
- Middlesex 1795 half penny token D&H-748, Spence's
- Middlesex 1795 half penny token D&H-851, Spence's
- Coins and currency dated 1795