Tokens

[Charlie 8]

Hi folks

After some recommendations from a few people on this forum I've been looking into 18th century tokens, ive flicked through the show us your copper thread and there are some fantastic tokens around. Ive tried to research a bit about the history behind them.

Is there any reference books on the market that people can recommend? Also, is there any good websites other than ebay that sell tokens?

Many thanks in advance.

[seuk 85]

The Token Book (Galata) would be a good place to start I think.
http://www.galata.co.uk/store.asp?storeAction=showDetail&stockID=18

Galata has many other books for sale covering various corners of the token field.

[Rob 2,996]

Simon Monks does a lot of tokens as does John Newman.

[brg5658 111]

The standard reference for 18th Century British Tokens is the Dalton & Hamer book. It is very large, and has been reprinted a few times in the past 40-50 years (mostly recently 2004 I believe, by Alan Davisson). Bill McKivor is working on a new edition to be released sometime in mid- to late-2015. All of these reprints and updates are exact reprints of the original Dalton & Hamer work released in separate volumes in the 19-teens with minimal revisions appended at the back of the works in list form.

The complete Dalton & Hamer reference is viewable online for free at this link. I found that flipping through such a large work in such an online manner was cumbersome, and there is no search functionality either.

The most user friendly and comprehensive work available as PDF (for e-readers or just to view on your computer screen) is The Ultimate Guide to Conder Tokens, which is completely searchable, fully illustrated, and easily the best $75 I have ever spent on a token resource book. It is a wonderful alternative to finding one of the reprints for $250+.

In the USA, these tokens are almost always referred to as "Conder tokens" -- named after one of the first gentleman who indexed them in his work back in 1798 (James Conder). There are also original works from the era by Charles Pye, Samuel Birchall, and others. The Charles Pye 2nd edition from 1801 is particularly interesting as it pictures many tokens in very well done illustrations. Over the past couple years, I have improved the Wikipedia article for Conder tokens a lot, so you may want to check that out and also look at the Bibliography at the end of the article.

If you are looking for a good book on the historical context of the token issues of this period, there is no more complete or better reference than the book by George Selgin titled "Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821". You can find that book on Amazon or any other online bookseller, as well as from Galata I believe.

I'm always happy to offer other resources or answer specific questions.

Best, Brandon

Edited November 26, 2014 by brg5658

[Coinery 926]

Wow! A very good library, I'd say!

[Paulus 1,942]

Yes, excellent post Brandon