Is this coin a Mule? "1795" date on the obverse. "1794" date on the reverse.

braddick

I still haven't got this one figured out!
Any help?




PCI wasn't much help when I sent it to them. . .

1jester

It appears to be some kind of Conder token, and an exact description will be forthcoming from the resident experts.

braddick

<< <i>It appears to be some kind of Conder token, and an exact description will be forthcoming from the resident experts. >>

1jester

I'm sorry Braddick; I thought somebody knowledgeable would have already jumped on this one. Conder tokens are trade tokens from the last decade of the 18th century in England. There are a few experts here; I am not one of them. Cosmicdebris, Aethelred, Farthing, and others should be able to give you an exact attribution; perhaps you can PM them to get their attention. Good luck!

farthing

It is a conder token, catalogued by Dalton and Hamer as Middlesex Kilvington's DH 350. There are two varieties for this token, the difference being the rim - #350 has PAYABLE AT G. GILBERTS NORTHIAM while on #350a the rim is plain.

I do not know why 1795 appears on one side while the other has 1794

Conder101

I would say that it is almost certainly a mule. A great many Conder tokens are struck from muled dies. There were many different manufacturers of these tokens and as they would get out of the business, their dies were often bought up by some of the other coiners. They would then often mule those dies with their own to produce new varieties that could be introduced into circulation "anonymously" and produced without the expense of creating new dies (It was much cheaper to buy someone elses discards that to engrave your own.), or to sell to collectors as part of the growing fad of token collecting. I'm at work right now and don't have access to my books. I will try to get back with more information on this later today.

braddick

Thanks guys (Conder, especially). I purchased it off a bid board because I liked the design and didn't even catch the two dates until I got it home.

I'm not looking for value, just some type of scarcity factor.

Conder101

Strange, I posted an answer to this two days ago and it isn't here. After I posted this, the first post I made on the 12th shows up. Anyway this post contains more information about the token.

Yes this is a mule, but it is a bit of an odd one.

A great deal of the conder token varieties are mules. There were a couple of dozen manufacturers of conder tokens and they did not all operate at the same times. As a manufacturer would get out of the token business, the other manufacturers would often buy up their dies. They would then mule them togethe or mule them with their own dies in order to create anonymous issues that could be circulated without having to worry about them being presented for redemption, or for sale to the growing number of collectors enjoying the new fad of token collecting.

Your token is a bit different. As farthing said this is cataloged under Middlesex as D&H 350 or 350a depending what the edge, that you now can not see, says. Fortunately both of them are common. Middlesex 350 however is actually a contemporary counterfeit. The obverse die is a fabrication designed to "copy" the Kelvington halfpenny issues D&H 346 & 347. and the reverse die is a die used for two Lancashire tokens D&H 45 and 47. Interestingly enough those Lancashire pieces are ALSO contemporary counterfeits. In this case, counterfeits of a series of half pence issued for a merchant named Worswick (D&H 9 - 28, which are all dated 1792.) If your token is a D&H 350, it has a link to yet a third county. The edge inscription on Mid 350, PAYABLE AT G GILBERT'S NORTHIAM was used on a genuine token from Sussex, D&H 35. This is a clue that the manufacturer of these counterfeits was William Lutwyche of Birmingham Warwickshire since he was the manufacturer of the Sussex token and the counterfeit Lancshire tokens are also found with edge inscriptions that come from other genuine tokens struck by Lutwyche.

The reason for the two different dates, the Kelvington tokens being "copied" were both dated 1795 and were produced that year so the copy die was understandably also dated 1795. But the already existing reverse die, which was cut the year before was dated 1794. So there was no special reason for the dual dating, just the luck of the draw on the dies.

braddick

Thanks Conder,
I've printed the information you provided and will keep it with the token.