English Private Money, 1648–1672

Abstract

Abstract Between 1644 and 1672, England halted the production of its lowest denomination coins, prompting ordinary individuals and communities to create coins to address the shortage of small change. A large twentieth-century collection that includes over 13,000 such surviving tokens has largely been overlooked by historians and economists, despite the tokens’ significance. In this source and others are a total of over 9,000 types of tokens, originating mainly from the City of London, thirty-seven English counties, and the Irish Pale. Catalogued in an eight-volume Sylloge, published over thirty years, the tokens offer valuable insights into England’s history and societal dynamics during a tumultuous period that included two major regime changes, plague, and London’s Great Fire.