British Copper Tokens, 1811-1820: Including Those of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands

264 pages : ill., maps ; 31 cm. The towns of issue are listed alphabetically and the descriptions of them were taken from contemporary directories and guides. Issuers were carefully researched in those and other publications, including directories. Contemporary newspaper accounts and adverts are used extensively throughout the book. There is an extensive bibliography, and seven pages of indexes. There are concordances with Davis, and Christopher Eimer's Medallic Portraits of the Duke of Wellington. There are appendices covering associated items, edges (illustrated) and maps showing the geographical distribution of the places of issue of the silver and copper tokens. This is the standard reference work on this series and is also much used in Canada, the USA and Europe. This book was five years in the writing and was our response to the frustration we felt at the varieties not properly described, or not illustrated in the pages of The Nineteenth Century Token Coinage of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man by W J Davis. It was inspired by an American numismatist Colonel Axel Wahlstedt, who wrote: 'It is not sufficient that a coin-catalogue is chronologically arranged, so that the different coin-types follow each other in the same way and in the same succession. A scientific coin-catalogue must also give an account of the economic conditions that form the background to the activity of the monetary workshops. Thus placed in their natural environment the coins can contribute to make a picture of the pulsating life they once assisted to maintain' in Transactions of the International Numismatic Congress 1936. …