Provincial Tokens

Good Question and Good Answers: Seems to me that a question recently asked in the Conder Token Discussion Group at Yahoo by a new collector about ways to organize a Conder collection and the answers provided might be of use to many people who aren't members of the discussion group. The question and the answers from the group are provided below.

I am new to the world of Conders and I was wondering if some of you would share your insights as to ways to organize a collection of Conders. At the start I was going to do a particular county, but then I didn't like missing out on so many others I liked. :-)

TY for any and ALL suggestions. dw

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For my money there is only 1 method. Buy a copy of Dalton and Hamer and then use the contents/index system. The D&H codes work very nicely and are universally recognized. m

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There are many different ways you can collect them. I started just doing one per English county. You could do all from one town, all from one county, all from one manufacturer, all from one engraver, one from each manufacturer or engraver, you could do them on a topical basis (I know a gentleman whose family traced back to the woolen industry, so he collects tokens that show a hanging fleece.). You could collect the anonymous general circulation issues, the Genuine Trade Tokens that were issued by merchants specifically to be used for circulation (most of which have some information about the merchant so a person would know who issued it and where it could be redeemed.). You could collect the issues that were made specifically for sale to collectors. There are also private tokens that were made for collectors specifically to be used to trade with other collectors. And then of course you could just collect the counterfeit issues . And then of course there are still the other country issues. (Wales, Ireland, Scotland.)

I finally settled of the Genuine Trade Tokens, there are 654 varieties not including edge varieties. (As listed in Waters' Notes on 18th century tokens.) I also collect The Skidmore Churches and Gates series that was made for sale to collectors. Those are my two basic collections, but it doesn't keep me from buying other nice tokens that I happen to come across. Michael Schmidt

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The best advice I received about collecting Conders was from Jerry Bobbe who said "Collect what you like". Joining the CTCC will expose you to collecting ideas and put you in contact with hundreds of other collectors and dealers. Good luck and happy collecting. Mike

The discussion group at Yahoo can be found here, information on and prices for Provincial Token-Coinage of the 18th Century by Dalton and Hamer as well as Notes on 18th Century Tokens by Waters can be found on the bibliography page of this site, and further information on CTCC can be found at the club's web site.