Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

17th Century Tokens, YORKSHIRE, Wales, Sarah Thomas, Halfpenny, 1.48g/12h (Paul, TCSB March 2007, p.387, this piece; Boon 129a; N –; D Wales 91B; cf. DNW 140, 743). Fair, dark patina, very rare £70-£90

Provenance: Found at Blyth (Nottinghamshire).

This token was first given to Wales (the country) by the late Peter Seaby, whose suggestion was followed by George Boon. The latter’s reasoning probably centred on three factors: the surname Thomas, common in Wales; the god save the king legend, a Royalist sentiment expressed on some tokens from Monmouthshire; and that an example was in the D.W. Dykes collection, now preserved in the National Museum of Wales. However, correspondence between Boon and the late David Griffiths in August 1979 makes it clear that Boon was unhappy at the original attribution to Wales by Seaby in 1965 and that he would, on reflection, delete the piece if a full reprint of his 1973 Welsh catalogue was ever undertaken. In more recent times at least one other specimen has been found in the Nottinghamshire/Yorkshire vicinity and in all probability the token can be assigned to the village of Wales, in today’s metropolitan borough of Rotherham (Paul, TCSB June 2009, p.256). A Sarah Thomas has been located in those parts of the hearth tax records published by the Ripon Historical Society as resident in Halifax in 1672