David Griffiths Reference Library of Token Books

Burn, J.H., A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-House Tokens Current in the Seventeenth Century; Presented to the Corporation Library by Henry Benjamin Hanbury Beaufoy. 1st edn, London, Printed for the Use of the Members of the Corporation of the City of London, 1853. Small 4to, maroon half morocco. 2 plates (including frontispiece), xlvii, 238pp. With ms notes and ephemera inserted by Ambrose Heal, portrait of Francis Hobler (? Senior), letter January 1855 to Charles Roach Smith and 1927 article by Ambrose Heal about the catalogue tipped in (Manville 379). £80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The David Griffiths Reference Library of Token Literature.

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Provenance: Ex libris Sir Ambrose Heal; bt D.R.D. Edmunds.

Heal claims that Francis Hobler compiled the collection, commissioning Burn to write the catalogue. Hobler then presented the collection and catalogue to the Guildhall Library in Beaufoy’s name in 1850. The plaque on the cabinet at the City of London Museum confirms this. Beaufoy was a common councilman and chairman of the City of London Schools committee for many years. A house at the City of London School was named after him