Page 8 - Ian Marshall - London Coffe Houses - Standing Display January 2016
P. 8
LONDON COFFEE HOUSE TOKENS
As the early coffee houses multiplied a number ofthe proprietors resorted
to issuing tokens, along with many other tradesmen, because there was a
chronic shortage of small change for many years after the Civil War.
Several of the coffee houses' signs survive on these tokens, photocopies
of a few being shown below. These tokens are very scarce but a number
of other such tokens are also shown below which all date from the
seventeenth Century. The use of such tokens was eventually banned in
1672.
Seventeenth-century coffee tokens
A token dated 1666 issued A unique undated Token described
by James Farr who opened in a sale catalogue in 1743 as
The Rainbow Coffee House "a leather ·three-pence" issued by
in 1656, one of the very first. the Union Coffee House in Cornhill.
•
[A farthing token issued in 1652 f A farthing token issued in 1656 / A town farthing token issued in
by Henry Smith, aff Ironmonger, 1657 featuring the Borough Castle
Iby William Reynolds ofAlcester in Banbury featuring his initials. / in Newbury.
featuring a fox running.
