1795 Conder Token Help

LeeG

I now own this 1795 Middlesex Spence DH-790B Conder Token. I've done searches on the internet trying to get some information on this particular token. Not much luck though Can anyone here help me out? Thanks, Lee

cosmicdebris

All I could find was a little info on Spence the guy that issued this token and the D&H description of it.

Obverse: Conjoined head of a man and an ass
Reverse: A man sitting in prison gnawing on a bone.

790b is considered scarce

Others still called attention to the economic and political abuses of the time. Among these, the medallic tokens of Thomas Spence are most interesting. Spence was a political radical, professional gadfly, and visionary reformer, born in 1750, active in the 1790's, dying in poverty in 1814. In 1793, he founded the oddly-named Pig's Meat or Lessons for the Swinish Multitude (the "swinish multitude" of the title was taken from a phrase in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France). To advertise the virtues of Pig's Meat and his numerous other projects, Spence struck his own tokens in London. He devised a crude but effective method of gaining the attention of passersby: every so often, he would throw a newly-minted token out of the window and onto the street. Pig's Meat was a libelous periodical, savagely attacking Church and State alike. Spence was arrested for his activities; upon his release, he issued another token, commemorating his sufferings in jail. Many of his ideas, found offensively radical by authorities in the 1790's, seem commonplace today. They included public libraries, nationalization of land, reformed spelling, and free schools under local control. But in the nervous days of the mid-1790's, when an invasion from radical France was expected hourly, these and Spence's other ideas worried many people in government and out.

LeeG

Thanks Cosmicdebris (Bill)!!!!!! Anyone else have anything? Lee

1jester

I have nothing constructive to add, but I do find it a very amusing token. Excellent condition too.

LeeG

Thanks 1jester!!!!!!! Lee

boz

Reverse die is T.S. 9

Obverse die is T.S. 13
This satiracal die portrays the head of George III and that of a patient ass, representing the public. Odd fellows were members of a society organized for social or benevolent purposes.
Spence was imprisoned 3 times for his outspoken hostility to the establishment and therefore used such methods of concealment. The establishment was frightened by the growth of radical ideas that wished to press for parliamentary reforms. Many leaders of the movement were brought to court and imprisoned.Thomas Muir and Joseph Gerrard were among them brought up on charges.
Spence used the legend in self protection. "A million hogg" means a fleeced and cheated multitude: and "Oddfellows" poses the question, Whose benevolence? The Monarchy's?
One authority has refered to this legend as the "ravings of a lunatic". Nothing could be further from the truth, and it would not have seemed so to the people of the time it was addressed; while in a court of law the prosecutors would have been hard pressed to obtain a conviction for sedition. Spence had good cause to be careful. The diesinker did not disclose his identity either, though it is almost certainly the work of Charles James.

Nice token

LeeG

Thanks boz!!!!!!!!! Can't wait to have it "In Hand"!!!!!! Lee