Listen: Numismatic Expert Richard Gladdle Talks Tokens With BBC Norfolk

Richard Gladdle, Stanley Gibbons Baldwins Numismatic expert, meets Kayleigh Poacher of BBC radio Norwich to explain how 18th Century Tokens tell Norfolk's history and prevented a few merchants from hanging! You can listen here

There were many merchants in Norfolk issuing their own coppers, particularly Norwich but also other towns such as Aylsham, Wroxham, Yarmouth and Harleston – and also in Suffolk, towns such as Bungay, Blything, Bury St. Edmunds, Hoxne, Hartismere, Haverhill, Sudbury and especially Ipswich.

On the edge of Joseph Clarke’s halfpenny pictured here is the legend PAYABLE AT J CLARKES MARKET PLACE NORWICH, thus stating that it was redeemable as a halfpenny and not an actual halfpenny ! This, Lot 161, is estimated at £40-50.

Michael Apsey, as another example, was an ironmonger and brazier in Bury St. Edmunds, who had a shop in the Butter Market. He produced an undated halfpenny in around 1795. It has the marvellous legend of ‘SUCCESS TO TRADE’, which sadly was a forlorn hope in his case, as he is recorded as being declared bankrupt a couple of years later in 1797.  It took eight years before his stock and shop were eventually sold off. This, Lot 198, is estimated at £40-50.

Lot 198

The tokens for these East Anglia localities will feature in an auction of British 18^th Century Tokens being held at Baldwin’s Auction House on Monday 7 October 2024. Providing a marvellous window into this last decade of the eighteenth century, the collection represents many British counties as well as throwing colour on the usage of coinage across countless commercial industries and enterprises of the time. For ten years, it was a truly a coinage ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’.                                                                                                   

The British 18^th Century Token sale, comprised of two parts, will bring to sale over 600 items from three excellent collections, including the collection of Paul Gerrie. The Gerrie lots (1 – 318) are in exceptional condition and are not just uncirculated but also exhibit much original lustre or beautiful toning with brilliance or iridescence. Some were once encapsulated and graded by PCGS and NGC – and in most cases achieved scores of 64 and above. In the second section are yet more tokens in superb condition, including some extreme rarities. Many are ex Cokayne, Drury and Longman, and many more will have come from Baldwins in the last century.