Great Britain 1811 Conder Token- Civitas Bristol

Solid piece - perhaps a little older environmental damage to the right of the neck and across the front part of the face, but overall worthy of inclusion to any collection of the genre.

I cant find out much about this one. Bell states the issuer was unknown, seconded by Galata's Token Book 2010.

The diesinker ( and presumably manufacturer ) was Thomas Halliday of Newhall Street, Birmingham. It is known that one Henry Morgan of 12 Rathbone Place, London, was his agent. Morgan is recorded as making a number of orders for tokens from Halliday. There is some suggestion that this was a false name, possibly deliberately chosen from the famous pirate.

Morgan was known to be active in Bristol issuing suspect silver tokens. I have references to him forging silver tokens which were of low purity and circulating them in Bristol. There is an advert by him in the Star newspaper in July 1811, advertising for sale "silver tokens and small change", by which I believe he means copper.

Does your token have any edge lettering? I suspect not. My references state that milled and plain edgings occur, but make no mention of text.

As this token has nothing to link it to a trader, it would have been impossible to redeem. This fits Morgan's ways of dealing. It was not uncommon for shady persons to circulate anonymous tokens in areas where genuine trade tokens circulated. Buying them cheap in bulk and then circulating at face value with no chance of comeback, would have made a nice little profit.

Possibly Morgan was connected to your token. This last is just conjecture on my part, and I would be very interested if anyone knows more.

Galata gives values dating from 2010 ( in £ ) as:
F 10, VF 30, EF 90.
Values are dated, but the best I have.