British Tokens, Tickets and Passes

City of London, Chick Lane [Charterhouse Street], John Fishwick, Farthing, 0.57g/3h (N 6775; D 608A; Sharman, TCSB vol. 4, p.22, this piece). Good fine, ‘river’ patina, extremely rare £150-200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, 17th Century Tokens from the Collection of Quentin Archer.

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Provenance: Found in the R. Thames near Custom House Quay, 1983; Mrs Dora Harris Collection, DNW Auction 56, 11 December 2002, lot 502 [from R. Sharman October 1983].

The tavern sign, a cat sat in a boat with a catherine-wheel as the helm, is an attempt at the transmutation of the sign of the catherine-wheel. Religious signs such as this were vigorously suppressed during the Commonwealth period (Sharman, TCSB vol. 4 no. 1, Winter 1984). For what it is worth, the animal on the token more resembles a rat than a cat