1793 Halfpenny

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Obverse - Arms of the Borough of Shrewsbury. (Azure, three leopards' faces or.)
Legend: SHREWSBURY HALFPENNY with 1793 above the shield and between the two words.
Reverse - A wool-pack.
Legend: SALOP WOOLLEN MANUFACTORY with a star as a stop.
Edge:- PAYABLE AT SHREWSBURY + +

Diesinker, Hancock; manufacturer, Hancock. Five tons were struck. Common.

Comments. The token does not bear the issuer's name, but it probably emanated from the proprietors of an extensive factory at a place called the Isle, about five miles from Shrewsbury.

The arms of Shrewsbury were originally three lions passant gardant; the leopards' faces are found for the first time on the seal of the Borough engraved in A.D. 1425. In the eighteenth century the town was an important centre of the wool trade, being the chief mart for the coarse Welsh webs made in Montgomeryshire, known as High Country cloth, and those of Denbighshire known as Low Country cloth; the former being dressed or sheared by the shearmen of Shrewsbury. The design of the woolpack is appropriate both to the issuer and the town, where woollen markets and wool fairs were held.

There is a forgery of this token dated 1794, and the dies have been mixed with several others to produce mules for sale to collectors. The genuine pieces are D&H 19-22.

Westwood fabricated a half-halfpenny of this design.

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