18th October 2017
Trade and Tokens in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire
Mary Scrimshaw – Mercer
Thomas Ridge – Grocer Mercer
Ben Alsop is the curator of the Citibank Gallery in the British Museum, a fascinating room which tracks the story of ‘money’ around the world. The talk was extremely interesting, showing us many examples of coins from the 17th century with a special focus on the East Midlands. The use of tokens during this period was also discussed. Tokens were used as units of small ‘currency’ produced by individual businesses and bearing their own special marks. Locally of course we have the use of the ‘siege coin’ produced in Newark in the Civil War as a good example of this practice. The talk ended with two example of business tokens from Collingham at this time.
There were many questions following the talk and it was obvious how much everyone had enjoyed the presentation.