The Important Collection of 18th Century Tokens formed by the late Dr David L Spence, of Pittsburgh (Part II)

Halfpenny, 7.67g/12h (DH 676); mule Halfpence (3), bust left, revs. noted advocates, etc, edge plain, 10.86g/6h (DH 677); Britannia, edge plain, 11.86g/6h (DH 678a); caduceus, spence edge, 12.10g/6h (DH 679) [4]. About extremely fine and better, all with original colour (£150-200)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of 18th Century Tokens formed by Dr David L Spence.

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Collection

Provenance:
W. Longman Collection, Glendining Auction, 12-13 March 1958, lot 185 (part) [676 from Baldwin March 1904, *677 and 679 from Baldwin December 1910, 678a from Lincoln October 1907]
Fawcett/Litman Collection.

Thomas Spence (1750-1814), a poor schoolmaster from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, had moved to London by the end of 1792 and early the following year was in business as a radical bookseller at 8 Little Turnstile. Following the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act Spence was arrested and committed to Newgate, where he spent the second half of 1794. In 1795 he started to produce and sell tokens from his bookshop and published The Coin Collector’s Companion, one of the earliest catalogues of the series. However, he had given up dealing in tokens by late 1796 and sold his dies, blanks, etc, to Peter Skidmore before moving to 9 Oxford street. The best authoritative work on Spence and his tokens remains Robert Thompson’s ‘The Dies of Thomas Spence (1750-1814)’, BNJ 1969, pp.126-62