The "spiel marke" is indeed play money, and given that the language on the reverse is German, it would be made in Germany (though no doubt sold in Britain). German-made jetons, game-counters and play money were sold all over Europe prior to WWI.
There is a catalogue that covers these pieces, "Toy Coins", but I don't have it. I have a few similar pieces to yours, which I bought for a couple of dollars at a coin club auction or came in a bag of mixed world coins.
The second token is entirely different. It's what is known as a "Conder token", and actually circulated as currency at a time when official coinage in Britain was in limited supply (just like Hard Times Tokens in America). This particular type is a generic or "stock token", which doesn't name the issuer. The standard catalogue for this series is "Provincial Token Coinage of the Eighteenth Century" by Dalton & Hamer.
There are three main varieties of this token, all worth about the same:
D&H# Middlesex 985, no period after "YORK", edge lettering reads "PAYABLE IN LANCASTER LONDON OR BRISTOL".
D&H# Middlesex 985a, no period after "YORK", edge lettering reads "PAYABLE AT LONDON OR DUBLIN".
D&H# Middlesex 986, period after "YORK", edge lettering reads "PAYABLE AT DUBLIN OR LONDON".
This website is selling examples of these tokens in EF condition for $35 to $45; scroll down to the bottom of the page to see them. I'd say yours would be $10 to $20 or so in VF condition.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 11/13/2010 11:00 pm
