Silver English Love Token Ca. 1600s

[Erik in NJ]

Just returned from a two week vacation in England. We rented a cottage in Devon for a week and I secured permission from a very kind local farmer to some of their fields that were adjacent to a church dating back to at least the 13th century. One of my first good targets in this field was this silver love token. It came out of the ground almost black, but cleaned up rather well.


I noticed the two bends in the coin and knew right away what it was as I'd seen these before found by a friend in England years ago. They were usually made of very worn silver coins. A suitor would bring two worn silver coins (sometimes copper or even gold) to a blacksmith and they would be put in a vise and bent slightly in one direction, then flipped and bent slightly in the other direction like the shape of a Pringle's potato chip or kind of like a loose "Z" shape. The theory was that these two coins would be the only two coins in the world that would form a perfect union when placed together.


The suitor would give one coin to his love interest. If the love was returned she would keep the love token. If the love was not returned hers would be often discarded (for us to find!). This particular love token is very interesting in that it appears to have been "recycled." Through a jeweler's loupe you can see that it has been re-bent in the opposite direction in which it was bent previously. The scratch marks along the current bends are unusual and quite crude and the coin is worn totally smooth. The diameter of the coin is 2 cm.


These love tokens were often made of William III sixpence (late 1600's), but in this case the coin may be even older. Regardless, I was elated to find my first love token and a silver one at that! Now if THIS coin could only talk!!

 

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[Gunrunner61]

Cool find, And amazing story...................HH

 

[Erik in NJ]

Thanks Greg!

 

[ticm]

Very cool would love to tect there

 

[CRUSADER]

Although the William III Sixpences circa 1697 are the most popular for these love tokens they could be any date later into the 18th C. They are very unlikely to be any earlier.
http://www.hudsonvalleyweddings.com/guide/token.htm
It would have to be a hammered coin to be earlier.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Interesting article, thanks. Funny that it does not mention the Z-shaped loved tokens which are almost exclusively the ones I've seen in the part of England that my wife is from and then this one unearthed as far away as Devon. It does however explain a story about a woman bending a coin in church for her husband that Chef told me. Based on several factors which are not evident in the scan it is most likely William III. Regardless it's one of my favorite finds.

 

[oldsoapy]

Always nice to find a love token. Hutch.

 

[CRUSADER]

Interesting article, thanks. Funny that it does not mention the Z-shaped loved tokens which are almost exclusively the ones I've seen in the part of England that my wife is from and then this one unearthed as far away as Devon. It does however explain a story about a woman bending a coin in church for her husband that Chef told me. Based on several factors which are not evident in the scan it is most likely William III. Regardless it's one of my favorite finds.

Statistically it is most likely William III.