Lead tickets and tokens
Figure 1 (not to scale)
Lead, as it is soft and prone to oxidisation, has rarely been used for coinage proper, and never in England. However, since it is cheap and easy to melt and cast, coin-like objects of lead, and sometimes also of pewter and tin, were widely produced in medieval times up to the nineteenth century. These lead pieces probably had a range of functions, perhaps a cheaper versions of reckoning counters and as token coinage in small scale dealings, and more certainly, as chits, tickets or passes. Ecclesiastical bodies used such tokens to register attendance at services. In most cases it is impossible to ascribe a particular function to these lead pieces.
Figure 2 (not to scale)
Medieval lead pieces come in a variety of forms. Among the commonest are the so-called 'Winetavern' or 'London Wall' tokens, dating to the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries. These are very thin and well-produced with pictorial designs (e.g. fig 1). Late medieval lead pieces were smaller but comparatively well made, employing pictorial and geometric pattern designs (e.g. fig 2). They seem to have been produced in hugh quantities, to judge from their survival rate. A number of moulds for their production have also survived.
Early sixteenth century tokens were larger and thicker, with distinctive designs. Some were based on medieval coin types; and some ecclesiastical issues can clearly be identified by references to liturgical Hours. The St Nicholas 'Boy' Bishop tokens of East Anglia, with their bishop's mitre design, relate to a religious festival, at least in inspiration.
| Elizabethan tokens are usually small and dumpy and often have letters or designs which may have identified merchants, taverns or vocations. Seventeenth century pieces continue the practice of using initials, emblems or geometric patterns as their main designs. Their execution tended to become cruder towards the end of the century (fig 3), and if anything eighteenth century lead pieces are cruder still. |  |
 Figure 3 (not to scale) |
Bibliography
M Michiner and A Skinner, 'English tokens c 1200 to 1425', British Numismatic Journal 53, 1983
M Michiner and A Skinner, 'English tokens c 1425 to 1672', British Numismatic Journal 54, 1984
