Tokens at auction from days when Warwickshire towns made their own ‘coins’

IN the 1790s, when there was no official small copper change in the country, enterprising folk around the country produced their own ‘tokens’ to help relieve the situation.

According to auctioneers, Baldwin’s Auction House, it started in Wales at a mining company which hit upon the idea of turning its copper straight into pennies and halfpennies, calling them ‘tokens’.

They were redeemable in official coin, but avoided the threat of being accused of forgery.

A large collection of those coins are being sold this month, including a couple from Stratford which, of course, feature Shakespeare.

The tokens were needed as Britain was at war with France and the price of copper had risen, causing small copper coins to ‘vanish’ from everyday use. It caused tremendous hardship for small merchants and shopkeepers.

Tokens became the replacement and within the space of a year, merchants in every town in England had begun issuing their token pence.

The practice continued for ten years, until the government again started issuing official copper coins.

One of the Stratford coins, a halfpenny token, features an annual archery competition between the ‘Woodmen of Arden’ while another has Shakespeare on one side, and boys sitting on a turnstile on the other.

In Birmingham Henry Biggs, an innkeeper at the ‘General Elliot’ in Moore Street, who had his own ‘Halfpenny’ in 1792 in order that he could give change in the tavern. Not unsurprisingly, the design featured the bust of General Elliot who had so defended Gibraltar against the French and Spanish some 12 years earlier.

There is also a Coventry token which on one side depicts an almost naked Lady Godiva.

The tokens are among a collection being sold at Baldwin’s Auction House on 7th October.