Tokens & Traders Of Kent In The Seventeenth, Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries [Paperback]

The Provincial Token-Coinage
Coins traditionally contained the value of the metal they were made from, less a nominal amount for the monarch and mint master and could only be produced by Royal decree. By the sixteenth century the penny and its fractions had been reduced in size by inflation becoming inconveniently small to manufacture and use. The general population resorted to using token coins containing less than their intrinsic value of metal until the monarch provided sufficient usable coinage for the needs of trade.
Trade tokens were issued in three distinct periods, the first during the seventeenth century, 1648-1672. The second in the eighteenth century, 1787-1801 and finally the nineteenth century, 1811-15. As well as being collectable, like coins, tokens issued by tradesmen contain personal information such as name, location, trade and even spouses forename initial in many cases and will be of interest to genealogists as well as family and local historians. Metal detectorists are a large group of regular finders of these tokens, who will also be looking for a means of identifying their metal detecting finds.
Available Sources
A number of eminent numismatists (including Atkins, Boyne, Conder, Dalton, Davis, Dickinson, Hamer, Pye and Williamson) have studied these tokens and produced extensive catalogues, generally covering the whole of a series. Until now the only solution to identification was to wade through these catalogues, which can be very expensive to buy, new or used. These catalogues can be borrowed free from the Library but there are few copies in circulation and waiting times can be lengthy. Many of the catalogues were compiled in the 19th and early 20th centuries so some have been scanned and are available online. The problem with scanning old texts is that the scanner has no real comprehension of what is written and so records what it perceives and the result can be gobbledegook! A further problem is that genealoglsH