Quentin Archer I
was born in the City of London, well within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside. I have spent almost my entire working life in the City. London is a special place for me, and for many years
I have been fascinated by its history and its continual change.
Like many young boys of my generation, I was
struck by the announcement in 1966 that the Government had decided to introduce decimal currency. Until then I had a collection of only a few worn bun pennies, but immediately I set about collecting coins from circulation – rather a challenge given my meagre pocket money. My fascination with coinage was clearly enough to compel my mother to take me late that year to the shop of B.A. Seaby in Great Portland Street, where a few shillings purchased an assortment of older British coins and I became a subscriber to the company's Bulletin.
Sadly there was little that I could afford, and my
tentative enquiries after cheap Roman coins tended to be met with the news that I had been beaten to them by more
energetic collectors. But in 1972, at the age of 16, I successfully bought three London 17th century tokens. It was to be another 30 years before I acquired any more, but in the intervening decades I never forgot them.
A quirk of the school timetable led me to study Russian, which I continued in my first year at
Cambridge. I then switched to law and qualified as a solicitor, but my knowledge of Russian came in very handy on a couple of very large disputes for Soviet clients, and I travelled back and forth between London and Moscow on many occasions. In the process I became interested in Russian history and coinage, leading in time to a substantial collection of Russian medieval coins. I chose the medieval period because they presented a much more interesting puzzle than the well-published coins of more modern times. This led in turn to the creation of an equally substantial library of Russian numismatic books. However, increasing affluence in Russia caused the supply of new material to dry up in the West, and so I resolved to sell both collections. The coins were auctioned by Baldwins in London in 2013, and the books by Kolbe and Fanning in New York a few months later. A large proportion of both returned to Russia.
Meanwhile, my interest in the London tokens had resurfaced, aided by the appearance of Dora
Harris's fine collection at Dix Noonan Webb in 2002. Somewhat to my surprise I was successful in buying most of the lots on offer. I collected spasmodically over the next few years, but I could not miss the sale of the Norweb collection of City of London tokens in 2008, and from then onwards my fascination with London tokens, history and topography has continued to grow.
The 17th century tokens of London are not only more numerous but also more varied than the
issues of other parts of the British Isles. In almost all cases they identify not only the issuer but also the street where the issuer was based, and a great many can be traced back to individuals whose existence is well attested from other contemporary records. Some issuers became wealthy, while others died of the plague, were burnt out in the Great Fire or met other sorry fates. In some cases the tokens are the earliest known evidence for particular streets existing at all, reflecting the rapid and somewhat haphazard development of early modern London.
They were also democratic. There were no virtually no companies, so anyone who was not a servant
or a holder of public office needed to have a trade, and (unless they dealt only in more expensive items) to have a means of giving small change. As a result, thousands of individuals in London chose to have their own tokens made. They should not be regarded simply as tavern tokens; issuers included tallow chandlers, grocers, meal men, oil men, bakers, sutlers, coffee-house keepers and even goldsmiths.
The tokens are a rich source for academic research. I have published a handful of articles on them
and hope to write many more. However, now that the collection has grown almost as large as the Norweb holdings I see no reason to hang onto the physical pieces themselves, and in this series of dispersals hope that others will appreciate them as much as I have.
Quentin Archer
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141
