Thread: Ancient Roman Brothel Token Found In London

London museum coin may be Roman "brothel token"

January 26, 2012
LONDON - A bronze coin found by a man who was looking in the mud by the river Thames may have discovered the first Roman "brothel token" in London.
The nickel-sized artifact is currently on display at The Museum of London. On one side it shows a lady lying on a couch with a man positioned behind her.
The coin, called spintria, was likely used 2,000 years ago in Roman London.

Senior curator Caroline McDonald said in a press release that there is much debate about the precise use of these Roman tokens they are widely thought to be coins that were exchanged for sex. The reverse numeral on the front of the object, XIIII, may indicate the price.
. . .
[The museum curator] believed it may be the only brothel coin ever found in the whole of Britain.

The photo of the token is inappropriate for this forum but if you wish to see it you can do so by clicking on the link to the article.

Man, I'd hate to think what you would find in a Roman brothel. And all you'd have for protection is half of a gutted-out lemon.

Yeah, spintrae have a long time controversy about them. Many do not believe they are ancient, but more medieval concoctions. Others believe they are ancient, but were not used in brothels, but for other reasons. One of the reasons to believe they may not have been used in brothels is WHY would you need them? Why do you have to strike a coin just to use in that business? If they WERE needed for whatever reason to use these in those businesses, then why are they so rare? Every small town in the Roman empire had these businesses, and Rome and other large cities had MANY. If they were needed and used, they wouldn't be so rare today.

Anyway, that is the arguments I have heard about them. As imagined, they are popular with some collectors.

Chris

that would be something interesting to have. a real conversation starter for sure.
thanks for sharing it with us hobo.

cody

This story has been reported on major news services, along with coin-oriented ones.

I hate to say it but this item sounds like a modern token, possibly made as a novelty item.

Why would a brothel issue tokens?
A customer comes in, he isn't going to just buy tokens, he wants service.

Such tokens would cause problems.
Customer goes home, his wife goes through his clothes, finds tokens.

Another "what if" question;
Suppose this item had been found in Italy.

Plenty of brothels have made tokens Willie. They are not for customers to buy at the brothel. They are spread around to attract potential customers that may come to redeem them and possibly come back later to spend some money. It's basically a trade token.

I recently read an article about Roman coinage (I believe in the CN Journal) claiming the quadran (1/4 As) was the accepted rate for a cheap prostitute back then.
It was a very small coin by the time of Augustus.

Originally Posted by willieboyd2

Such tokens would cause problems.
Customer goes home, his wife goes through his clothes, finds tokens.

Many years ago I lived on W43 St in Manhattan, right around the corner from the famous (or infamous) Show World - a peep show palace with "live nude girls".
They used tokens to operate their peep booths.
Every day I would see tokens from there laying in the street, discarded by suburban husbands who didn't want wifey to know of their shenanigans.
There were small brass ones, worth a quarter and larger steel or nickle ones worth a buck.
Enterprising kids from the neighborhood would scoop them up and sell them at a discounts to patrons entering the "theater".

Originally Posted by Numismat

Plenty of brothels have made tokens Willie. They are not for customers to buy at the brothel. They are spread around to attract potential customers that may come to redeem them and possibly come back later to spend some money. It's basically a trade token.

Actually, for contorniates the theory was that using a coin with the emperor's face to use their was disrespectful to the emperor. So effectively you would buy a token at the door and then use that token inside the business once you decided....well whatever.

I seriously doubt it could ever be a circulating token. Remember that bronze coinage seignorage was a major revenue source for the emperor. He sure as heck is not going to allow these places to start taking a cut of this profit.

Neat. But doubtful.

Originally Posted by medoraman

Actually, for contorniates the theory was that using a coin with the emperor's face to use their was disrespectful to the emperor. So effectively you would buy a token at the door and then use that token inside the business once you decided....well whatever.

That makes sense. I'm not knowledgeable on ancient coins or practices, so I was speaking generally of how brothel tokens are used (not that I've ever used one!).

Oh dear. I don't know what I was thinking when I clicked on this thread..........

Originally Posted by green18

Oh dear. I don't know what I was thinking when I clicked on this thread..........

Freudian slip?

Here is a link to an article detailing arguments against these as being anything more than probably game tokens.

Warning, as with the first link, the photos are not appropriate for Cointalk.

http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Archive/8?&id=9&type=a

The article goes over some of the arguments I have laid out against these probably being the sensationalistic use the media clearly likes to publish about.

Chris