Copper Tokens of the Early 19th Century
By Paul Withers | Tuesday, 9 January 2001
As we all know, practically all early 19th century cooper tokens were produced in Birmingham, and the Bible for the series was Davis's seminal work 19th-Century Tokens. Initial thoughts were to produce a straight reprint of Davis, not intending to do any original writing, and to scan and process the text. There is, however, much wasted space in Davis, so the next thought was to incorporate a few corrections, and perhaps add a few more illustrations not in the original. This would have produced a book of some 90 pages, and with illustrations the number would be 120 pages. A straight reprint, it was estimated, would take three months and, with added illustrations, say six months.
The final result, however, was distinct, innovative, and as complete as possible with the maximum possible information - complete legends and inscriptions, full accurate descriptions and details of metal, die axis, weight, diameter, type of edge and, of course, rarity based largely, but not totally, on the number of specimens seen during the compilation. A project that had been intended to last three months at the most, with 120 pages, ended up with 264 pages, and took three years to complete.
Initial work took place on a flatbed scanner (which cost a fortune at the time, and prices have since, as with most things in a technological world, dropped considerably). Once the text is scanned, you can begin to make the necessary corrections, and a card index was formed alongside the additions being made. Photographs were continually taken as specimens were found and recorded - and here tribute must be made to the many dealers, collectors and museums who were extremely helpful in making specimens and information available.
Photos were stuck into the card index so that accuracy of legends and descriptions could be checked. It was realised quite early on that not only had Davis in his 19th-Century Tokens missed many pieces but that even with listed pieces there were many mistakes in the descriptions, the counting of leaves, berries, chimneys and stays and, not least, a confusion between left and right or ignoring important details such as which way a figure faced. Probably a number of these errors had arisen from copying incorrect or inaccurate observations made by Sharp or Samuel.
In the latter case, a marvelous discovery was made - Samuel's collection, still intact, was held by the National Museum of Wales. However, much of the metal was of poor quality or the pieces badly worn. It was this latter factor that, oddly enough, saved the collection intact. After Samuel's death the family had tried to sell the collection through various auction houses or dealers, none of whom were interested so, after about 20 years, in desperation the family gave the collection to the National Museum of Wales.
The first of the early cataloguers was Sharp who worked from one collection - Chetwynd's - but although Sharp was a good cataloguer on the few occasions that he uses the word die, he usually gets something wrong. This happens in his first entry where he says that the threepences of North and Co and John Featherstone from Wiveliscombe were struck using different reverse dies, which is quite wrong. He also writes that there is a variety of the Halesowen workhouse token. Davis, right for once, said that advanced collectors had failed to find it - neither did the Withers!
But, one must not knock Davis too much - Paul had developed a tremendous respect for Davis as the completion of the book approached. Davis was a virtual pioneer in this field who had managed to write a major new reference catalogue which incorporated every major type. All that was available to him was Sharp's catalogue of the Chetwynd collection and Samuel's comments in Bazaar Notes. The former was by no means complete , and the latter contains almost as much opinion as it does fact. Another reason why Davis encountered problems was the fact that he did not have the advantage of close observation and comparison of tokens with good enlarged photographs - a technique not then available to him.
In the old university collections of coins, such as Oxford and Cambridge, will be found superb collections of 18th century token (Cambridge has two, one a mirror image of the other, each more or less complete and every piece in superb condition) comparison is thus very easy. Nineteenth century tokens, however, the industrial product of an industrial age, were circulated, became worn and had no collectors such as Condor or Pye eager to collect and identify each new variety, and there certainly were no collectors eagerly awaiting new issues at the factory gates, although Matthew Boulton Junior did collect the odd few tokens.
Because of the lack of good specimens, Davis was often trying to describe worn or damaged examples, or relying on the opinions of Samuel. Why Davis chose to believe Samuel and largely ignore a wonderful set of rubbings (still surviving in a private collection) that Atkins sent him when he heard that he was going to publish a catalogue of 19th century token is a mystery.
A major change in the new book was to list the tokens in alphabetical order of the town in which they were issued, thus requiring a certain amount of moving things around. As may be expected, towns beginning with the letter B take up practically half the space of the book.
This system works well with 17th and 18th century tokens, but not so well with the 19th century. Counties such as Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Kent have, astonishingly, none at all, along with most of Wales. Interestingly, if a distribution map is made of the places of issue and superimposed on one of the distribution of density of sheep, those areas that have most sheep seem to have issued fewest tokens.
Another reason for listing the pieces in alphabetical order of town is that county boundaries, when Davis was writing, or when the tokens were issued, have changed, sometimes several times, and have even changed back again in some cases. At least an arrangement by town name is relatively stable and avoids the problems of shifting boundaries.
Whilst 19th century silver tokens illustrate the zenith of trade in county and market towns, the copper tokens are different. They illustrate a time of great change a time when local traders, pillars of their communities, wer e concerned with honesty, image, charity and philanthropy. The majority of local trader-issuers were concerned with meeting a desperate need, the provision of small change, and there was not always a profit to be made out of either silver or copper tokens.
Birmingham Workhouse certainly made a loss on their silver issue, and Cox and Co of Taunton also made a loss on their issue of copper tokens. Comparing the places of issue of copper and those of silver tokens is interesting - the places that issued silver tokens were largely the cities and the old market towns, whilst the copper tokens were, in the main, issued in the growing centres of industry but, curiously, Wolverhampton refused to touch them.
Davis lists only two manufacturers - Edward Thomason and Thomas Halliday. Halliday was, however, an engraver and die sinker, and it is unlikely that he struck tokens on his own account, unless of course he was that obscure character Henry Morgan of Rathbone Place, London - a possibility that might be considered. The whole matter of who made the tokens was shrouded in a veil of mystery until the discovery of three highly relevant letters in the Boulton Archives and information from the Birmingham Workhouse archives. The letters are from Zacharias Walker who was Matthew Boulton Junior's secretary. They reveal the names of some manufacturers but, importantly, not mentioning Halliday as such. They also say something about the manufacturers who were operating in a business that was beset with problems, not least of which was a belief that some engravers were likely to make counterfeits of their tokens if they caught a glimpse of them. Relations between manufacturers in Birmingham during the last quarter of the 18th century were often strained, and there is no reason to assume otherwise in the first quarter of the 19th century.
