I think that I found another nice Conder piece. Please let me know if the condition is above or below average. I passed on a few other Conder pieces because they looked a little porous. I certainly need to learn about these tokens. Can someone recommend a book on Conder pieces? Very best regards, collect89
Is this book by James Conder a good book for me to start with? An Arrangement Of Provincial Coins, Tokens, And Medalets: Issued In Great Britain, Ireland, And The Colonies, Within The Last Twenty Years, From The Farthing, To The Penny Size (1798) by James Conder It would be nice to have a reference book that discusses relative rarity & value. Very best regards, collect89
One, that is not a Conder token. The Conders run in general in the time frame of 1787 to 1800. That is a 19th century piece from a later coin shortage period that ran from about 1811 to 1820. Those tokens are covered in British Copper tokens 1811 - 1820 by Bente Withers. There is a previous book by Davis but I do not recommend it. The book you mention was the first fairly comprensive catalog of the tokens and was the standard reference from 1798 to 1890. (James Conder was also a token issuer. His tokens and the book he wrote are why they are known in the US today as Conder tokens. In Great Britain they call them 18th century token coinage.) It is only of interest today for those of us who are numismatic bibliophiles. I just downloaded a PDF copy of it last week off of Google. It may have been good for its day, but I really don't understand how anyone really used it. There are minimal plates, and for many series there are several similar die varieties. The first one is described and then the others are listed as "another, differently arranged." The standard reference today is 18th Century Provincial Token Coinage by Dalton and Hamer, published in 1910 (with reprints in 1967, 1977, 1990, 1996, and 2004.) For being written in 1910 it has held up remarkably well. Almost every die variety is pictured, and the images are decent, not halftones. The rarities assigned are for the most part pretty accurate. (There are a few serious rarity blunders, but not many.) Unfortunately the reprints are just that, reprints with the same errors repeated over and over with no corrections. Starting with the 1990 edition it also includes an addendum at the beginning that lists all of the new discoveries since the previous printing. The 1990 has everything since 1910, the 96 has that plus the new ones since 1990, and the 2004 has both of those plus the new discoveries since 1996. (It's surprising that for a series that has been actively collected for over 200 years, new discoveries are still being made.) The book contains between two thousand and twenty-five hundred obv/rev pairings, and when all of the different edge variations are included there are around five thousand possible varieties. (Part one of the largest callection ever assembled is going on sale this October. Robbie Brown collected the entire book and his collection contains around 4,900 varieties.) There are two problems with this book. One the number of copies are almost exhausted so it is about to go out of print again, and two it's not a cheap book. The lowest retail price is around $185, if the publisher still has copies he want $200. Your best bet is to watch for it on eBay, Numislit puts up copies from time to time. I recently let a collector know when a copy came up an he managed to get it for $135. There are two other works that make good companions to D&H. The first one is Notes on 18th Century Tokens by Arthur Waters. This book contains more background information on the token issuers, die engravers, and token manufactures, plus for a great many of the tokens the number coined. This is a 1954 Stacks publication and long out of print so copies of the original are very difficult to get. (But photocopies are possible.) The second book is useful if you are going to collect the English tokens. (D&H groups the tokens by country, England, Anglesey/Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.) Legend Index of English Conder Tokens published in 2001. These tokens were for the most part meant to circulate locally where it was assumed the citizens would know where they came from. For that reason a great many of them do not clearly indicate where they were issued. Often times the only way to find a token was to page through D&H page by page until you found the picture of your token. A long process. With th index you look up the inscription from one side and it lists all of the D&H numbers that used that inscription. Then you look up the inscription from the other side, and find what D&H numbers are common to both sides. Usually it's just one or two, seldom is it more than four. But that lets you go straight to them in D&H rather than searching page after page. Most varieties can be found in under two minutes. Unfortunately this book is also out of print, but the author is preparing a second edition because one the of the exonumia dealers who handled it is wanting to purchase more copies and he can't get any more from the publisher. One other great companion item is Dr Sriro's CD of Conder tokens. This CD contains excellent images of some 3600 varieties. (Usually of high grade pieces.) It also lists the D&H rarity for pieces that are Scarce or higher, plus the number of pieces of that variety he has seen at auction or in fixed price lists. Some 35,000 token sales. the CD is available at $35 for first time buyers and $20 for subsequent editions. (I have the 2005, 6, 7, (7+ that included some 70 attribution corrections I sent him), and the 2008 edition. I didn't see a listing for a 2009, so I assume he has not added many pieces recently. The one bad thing about this is that the tokens pictures are from his collection. So even if he has appearance data for a token, if he hasn't been able to purchase a nice one for himself, that data is not available until he does.
Thank you muchly Thank you Conder. I'll be looking for a used copy of Dalton and Hamer's 18th Century Provincial Token Coinage. Today I purchased a copy of: Waters, Arthur William Notes on eighteenth century tokens Being supplementary and explanatory notes on the "Provincial taken coinage of the eighteenth century" by Richard Dalton and Samuel H.Hainer, Seaby 1954. It cost $14.74 Is there a place you might direct me to purchase a copy of Dr Sriro's CD? Very best regards, collect89
You did well on the Waters book, that's a good price. I paid considerably more for my copy. As to the CD, Dr Sriro moved a little whileback and I'm not sure of his current address. He also changed his email. I have two email addresses for him I will try and send them to you privately One is good one isn't and I don't know which. I pretty sure the Globalnet address is the current one.
There is a copie of D&H on Amazon of the 1967 edition, but it sounds like a photocopy at $150. I don't recommend it. My god, it's available online and in download form here http://www.archive.org/details/provincialtokenc00daltuoft I suspect it is the 1967 edition. I'm currentky downloading it an I will check it out later. Forget this one. It's just Part XI of the original publication (Anglesey and Wales) so it's less than 1/5th of the book. Abesbooks and alibris have used copies but they cost as much as a new copy David Stuart at www.abccoinsandtokens.com claims to have them as 125 pounds plus shipping. Bill McKivor has new copies at $188 postpaid http://www.thecoppercorner.com/forsale/books.html
ok it seems the down load is missing pages??? yes or no???any way we can get the whole book on down load I printed it..
You did see in that post of mine (From 2009) about the download that I then went on to say that it turned out to be only part IX and only 1/5th of the book? After four years there are other options This site lets you view the entire book online, and it also has a free download of the entire book. The book is a page by page scan of the book and it is a little over lit, but it does seem to be readable. It can be viewed as either single or double pages. The single page view seems better to me. http://provincialtokencoinage.weebly.com/ If you don't mind paying for it there is a download version here for $75. It is the one I use on my computer. I like it better than the previous online version (I haven't checked the free full download version of the previous one but I suspect it would be the same as the on-line version. At this site you can download some samples to see how you like it. http://www.condertokenbook.com/ One advantage of the paid deal is that if you decide you don't like it you have 60 days to request a full refund. And you get two different versions of the book a low resolution and a high resolution. Both version have better images than than the first free version, and the high res are very good and can be enlarged 400%. If you aren't going to get a printed copy, this $75 digital version is pretty nice. I haven't tried printing any of the pages, so I don't know how well it would do as a printed copy. And finally there is a "print on demand" paperback version available for about $20 on amazon. I have not seen a copy so I can't say if it is usable or not. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/12..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1VV10CFVQC60VZJA9FAX
