Great Britain half penny or advertising token ca. 1795 Robert Heslop Halfpenny London Chiswell Street DH Middlesex 336 Conder Token VF-gF

Great Britain, London, halfpenny token of about 1795 issued by the dealer Robert Heslop, copper, milled.

Obverse: a male contortionist and a monkey imitating him, legend CAN YOU DO SO.
Reverse: in six lines THE FIRST SHOP IN LONDON FOR NATURAL CURIOSITYS PAINTINGS COINS COLOURS FOR ARTISTS &c., around R. HESLOP NO. 86 CHISWELL STREET FINSBURY SQUARE.

Reference: Dalton and Hamer, Middlesex 336.

This piece is small change and shop sign in one. Robert Heslop kept a shop in Chiswell Street by Finsbury Square in London for natural history and foreign curiosities, along with paintings, coins and colours for artists; that is exactly the stock listed on the reverse. After 1775 the Royal Mint issued no copper for many years, and in the 1790s traders all over the country had halfpennies of their own struck, known today after the collector James Conder. Many issuers understood at once that a piece like this passes through a thousand hands and is therefore the cheapest advertising money can buy. The contortionist with his monkey is calculated for exactly that: an image you see once and do not forget. The heyday of these private copper pieces ended when Matthew Boulton struck the heavy cartwheel pennies for the Crown in 1797, and on 15 October 1831 all tokens of this kind lost their standing as money.

vanzandwijkmunten: because one coin is never enough.

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Coins have been part of my life for almost thirty years. It started with the things I found in the ground as a boy, and it never stopped. First the searching, then the reading and figuring out, and the collecting. Dealing came much later, and even though it is how I make my living now, I still enjoy looking at every piece the way a collector does.

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vanzandwijkmunten: Because one coin is never enough

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