Please Help With Info On This Oxford Clothing Token

Hi stoll78 and welcome to the forum!

Don't know if this helps much with regards to more info but there's one the same as yours listed on eBay.

Reads ...

'This is an example of an Unofficial Farthing from London Middlesex England'.

Side 1: OXFORD CLOTHING Co. 454.542.543 NEW OXFORD St. 21s/ COATS

Side 2: OXFORD CLOTHING Co. 454.542.543 NEW OXFORD St. 12s/ TROUSERS.

https://www.ebay.at/itm/FARTHING-OX...AOSwOA1aJukp

Welcome to the forum.

Your token makes a brief appearance in the following book:

Unofficial Farthings 1820 to 1870
R C Bell
Seaby Publications Ltd 1975

Tradesmens tokens were declared illegal in 1818, but there were still shortages of small change for a number of years. Tradesmen got around this by having farthing-size advertising tokens made, which were used as small change.

Bell lists yours in the Victoria section and refers to a listing of it in the 1868 book -

Catalogue of the Copper Coinage of Great Britain, Ireland, British Isles and Colonies
D T Batty
published Manchester 1868.

(I dont have a copy of this but wish I did ).

Bell states this is 438 in Batty's work.

From this, at the moment the best date range for issue I can give is sometime between 1837 and 1868.

Your token was issued by the Oxford Clothing Company, of New Oxford Street, London. Bell lists two versions, yours, and the one you mentioned with the man's head. Bell describes yours as "rare" and the other as "very rare". Both were issued in brass.

In the supplement to Bell's work are some clear plates.

Text on your token reads-

OXFORD CLOTHING Co
454.542.543
NEW OXFORD St
21s/
COATS

And the other side is the same except the last two lines are-

12s/6
TROUSERS

The large numbers are prices in predecimal. I suspect the list of small numbers is part of the address.

The other token has one side the same as yours, and the other has text

B CUBITT
(bust here)
MANAGER

I hope this helps you to start on your research. I will do some digging and if I find any more I will update this thread.

The troble with Batty is that he changed the reference numbers with each successive edition.I have the 1877 halfpenny book, available as a PDF if you'd like a link.

This is the entry in Batty...




There are four tokens for this company listed in "The Token Book 2, Unofficial Farthings & small advertising tokens 1820-1901 including 'Columbia Farthings'" by Paul & Bente R Withers, published by Galata in 2013. This book is the replacement for Bell's two books.