Please help identify.

[Digger the dectorist]

Hi found this odd coin but can't find out what it is looks as if I maybe Roman found in UK England Buckinghamshire. Look to be made of

copper

 

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[Gulf Coast Pirate]

Would a Roman coin use Arabic numerals?

 

[Gulf Coast Pirate]

It could be a 1659 Maravedis....

 

[CRUSADER]

It could be a 1659 Maravedis....

I can see the 59, & think your probably right because it's not a British coin or token.

 

[river roamer]

Very interesting find ongrats

 

[Digger RJ]

Hi found this odd coin but can't find out what it is looks as if I maybe Roman found in UK England Buckinghamshire. Look to be made of View attachment 2070918View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070920View attachment 2070921copper

Very Cool!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Tigershore]

Hi found this odd coin but can't find out what it is looks as if I maybe Roman found in UK England Buckinghamshire. Look to be made of View attachment 2070918View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070920View attachment 2070921copper

Hi found this odd coin but can't find out what it is looks as if I maybe Roman found in UK England Buckinghamshire. Look to be made of View attachment 2070918View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070919View attachment 2070920View attachment 2070921copper

Nice find, it looks kinda like this!

 

[Red-Coat]

Interesting find. My guess is that it’s a 1659 farthing token, privately issued for a merchant. Stylistically, it has some uncanny similarities to this one:



That example has a letter ‘E’ for Philip Eldred of Wallingford. He was an apothecary and the token says that on the other side, together with his name and family coat of arms. Yours isn’t a match and I’m pretty sure it has a letter ‘B’ rather than an ‘E’ but it looks like the work of the same die engraver. Token manufacturers often used the same essential design for multiple customers, changing only the name, address or business details. Note also that Wallingford is pretty close to the Buckinghamshire border.

Some more intensive searching might turn up a token match for another merchant with a surname beginning with ‘B’.

 

[Digger the dectorist]

Interesting find. My guess is that it’s a 1659 farthing token, privately issued for a merchant. Stylistically, it has some uncanny similarities to this one:

View attachment 2070949

That example has a letter ‘E’ for Philip Eldred of Wallingford. He was an apothecary and the token says that on the other side, together with his name and family coat of arms. Yours isn’t a match and I’m pretty sure it has a letter ‘B’ rather than an ‘E’ but it looks like the work of the same die engraver. Token manufacturers often used the same essential design for multiple customers, changing only the name, address or business details. Note also that Wallingford is pretty close to the Buckinghamshire border.

Some more intensive searching might turn up a token match for another merchant with a surname beginning with ‘B’.

Well done mate cheers you are right

 

[Bramblefind]

I had been searching through images of 17th C trade tokens - there are hundreds of them! It may be the farthing issued by Joseph Bell. There is an image from the British Museum but I am only able to access it through google images.

I thought the initials under the B could be "I.H." - seen faintly on your coin.

 

[Red-Coat]

I had been searching through images of 17th C trade tokens - there are hundreds of them! It may be the farthing issued by Joseph Bell. There is an image from the British Museum but I am only able to access it through google images.

I thought the initials under the B could be "I.H." - seen faintly on your coin.

Yep... that sure looks like it. Well done.

 

[Red-Coat]

Just a bit more. Joseph Bell was born in 1629 and died in 1692. Contemporary records show his occupation as “mercer”, which originally referred to a trader in cloth, typically fine cloth, and often imported from the Near and Far East. Later usage expanded to term to cover shopkeepers dealing in dry goods not necessarily including cloth. Although the reference found by @Bramblefind says “HEYTESBURY”, I think that’s a misinterpretation of “AEYLESBURY” as an archaic spelling of “Aylesbury”, which is where Bell was in business. It’s in Buckinghamshire, where the token was found. Bell's only token in catalogue listings seems to be the 1659 farthing.

The reference to “The Mercer’s Arms” makes it sound like he was running a pub in that name, but I think it just means the arms granted to the “Worshipful Company of Mercers”, one of our oldest liveried companies, incorporated under a Royal Charter in 1394.

 

[CRUSADER]

I had been searching through images of 17th C trade tokens - there are hundreds of them! It may be the farthing issued by Joseph Bell. There is an image from the British Museum but I am only able to access it through google images.

I thought the initials under the B could be "I.H." - seen faintly on your coin.

That was a good ID.
I find tons of these 17th C Token's & it really had very few of the hallmarks you expect. Once Red-coat did the side by side, I could also see a faint IH under the B, but that would have been a lengthy book search, so gave up thinking about it. Other than I then knew it had to be a 17th C Token, due to the configuration of the 3 letters. The I is a J for Joseph & the H is normally the first name of the Wife, like Helen.

 

[Red-Coat]

...The I is a J for Joseph & the H is normally the first name of the Wife, like Helen.

Highly likely. Joseph’s first wife (Margaret Baines) died in August 1659 but he then married Hannah Dover. Exact date not recorded, but the marriage ‘banns’ (announcements in church of intention to marry such that possible objections can be raised) were recorded in October that same year.

 

[CRUSADER]

Highly likely. Joseph’s first wife (Margaret Baines) died in August 1659 but he then married Hannah Dover. Exact date not recorded, but the marriage ‘banns’ (announcements in church of intention to marry such that possible objections can be raised) were recorded in October that same year.

Hannah fits then.