copper farthings were issued by Charles the
Second; and the tokens went out of use.
Collections of tradesmen's tokens became gradually
more and more valuable as curiosities. Dr.
Browne Willis, of Oxford, made one of these
collections, which he presented to the Bodleian
library; the British Museum contains a large
number, Captain Beaufoy's collection being
especially valuable; and there are many other
collections in the hands of dealers.

These old tokens acted as shop-signs as well
as money, identifying each particular trader
with a particular house. It was his trade-mark,
his symbol. Every token bore the name of
the issuer, and mostly the sign of the house or
shop which he kept. Thus in Fleet-street we
find the Bear, the Bull's Head, the Cock, the
Sugar-Loaf, the Dragon, the Hercules' Pillar,
the White Hart, the Rainbow, the Castle, the
Jerusalem, the Golden Angel, the Three Nuns,
the Boar's Head, the Temple, the Seven Stars,
the Three Squirrels, the Mitre, the Feathers,
the King's Head, and the Unicorn. Some of
these names or signs exist to this day among
the Fleet-street taverns. In Paternoster-row,
in Newgate-street, in Ivy-lane, in all the old
thoroughfares thereabouts, traders were
accustomed to issue such tokens during the first half
of the seventeenth century. The following are
the inscriptions on some of the tokens as specimens
of the class: "Mansfield's Coffee-house
Providence in Shoe-lane;" "Francis Plomer
in Little Wood-street His Halfpeny;" "John
Mitchell living at Litle Somer's Key near
Billingsgate;" "John Backster at the Mother
Read Cap in Holloway 1667 His Halfpeny;"
"Haberdasher Small Wares at ye Maremade
'twixt Milk-street Wood-street;" "John Henley
in Grub-street His Halfpeny." There were
sometimes very odd combinations of objects on
tokens; such as, the Ape on Horseback, Ape
Smoking a Pipe, Bleeding Heart, Cardinal's
Hat, Cheese-knife, Chopping-knife, Cock and
Sack-bottle, Cradle and Sugar Loaf, Cripple on
Crutches, Dagger and Pie, Dove and Olive
Branch, Fighting Cocks, Five Tobacco Pipes,
Half Moon and Tobacco Roll, Heart and Arrow,
Labour in Vain, Pickled Tongue, Pile of Cheese,
Virgin and Gabriel, Salutation, Woman's Shoe,
Star of Bethlehem, and Sun in Splendour.
The number three was a favourite in the Three
Bibles, Three Candlesticks, &c.; as was also
the prefix Golden, as in the Golden Bottle,
Golden Spectacles, &c. The Beaufoy collection
contains a token of the Devil Tavern;
on one side is, " At the D[evil] and Dunstan's,"
and on the other, "Within Temple Barre,"
while the device represents St. Dunstan holding
the devil by the nose. The earlier tokens were
mostly in lead or other soft metal; those of
later date were frequently of brass. The Chapter
Coffee-house, in Paternoster-row, once so
celebrated as a resort of literary characters,
issued leather tokens, some of which are still in
existence.

After the suppression of tokens by real
farthings in the time of Charles the Second, few
or no new specimens were issued by tradesmen
until the time of George the Third. About
eighty years ago, the copper coin became very
scarce, and the current specimens so worn that
the devices were almost obliterated. The Parys
Copper Mine Company at Amlwch, in Anglesea,
struck many tons of brass tokens, apparently
for individual traders; but, when Matthew
Boulton coined five hundred tons of heavy-
rimmed pennies for the Government, matters
reverted to their proper state. Afterwards
copper became so high in price, that speculators
secretly melted down the heavy pennies, to
obtain a higher price for the metal as cake
copper; and this led to the fabrication of wretched
substitutes in the form of tokens. For fifty
years past there has been no inducement to
issue traders' tokens in England, except a few
here and there as advertisements. As a sign or
mark, a token is certainly worth attention; and
it may be true, as Dr. Combe observes, that
"though at present no high value be set upon
English town-pieces and tradesmen's tokens by
men of learning, a time will come when these
coins will be as much esteemed in this country
as the town-pieces of the Greeks."

Another mode of identifying a trader with
his occupation, is that of Trade or Merchant's
Marks, pertaining to his articles of production
rather than to his place of business, and having
a direct though not calculable money value.
All distinguished families, as well as traders and
merchants of note, had their particular marks
in the middle ages, often to be seen on church
windows, given by them. As a substitute for coat
armour, many families adopted their trade mark
in a shield; and these were continued by their
descendants as an hereditary distinction. The
arms of the borough of Southwark are nothing
more than a trade mark. The arms of the
great city companies were generally adopted by
persons in their respective trades all over the
country; and in addition to this, many trades,
not incorporated into guilds, had in like manner
trade arms or trade marks common to all the
respective fraternities. Towns and abbeys,
monasteries and convents, had their arms or
marks. Many of the devices were of a religious
character, such as a cross and banner, as depicted
in the Agnus Dei. Most of them, however, were
mere fancies, traceable to no particular mode or
system: such as a monogram, a rebus on the
name, a combination of geometrical tracery, a
shirt with two letters stamped on it, an arrow
sticking through a pig, a pig bearing an
upright gibbet on his back, and other oddities.
Shopkeepers had trade marks sometimes, but
among the trading classes they were mostly
confined to merchants and shipowners. When
the merchants rose to the rank of gentry, by
marriage or by the accumulation of wealth, the
mark was not only a substitute for arms in the
shield; it was often combined with the arms.
As a trading expedient it was customary for a
merchant to cause his mark to be affixed to every
bale or package of goods from his store, that
his wares might be distinguished from those of