1792 John Howard Copper Conder Token / Half Penny / Warwickshire D&H 145 /Payable at H. Hickmans Warehouse Birmingham : Issued by Henry Hickman, a wholesale and retail dealer in sheet, bar and rod iron with a business at 3, Edgebaston Street, Birmingham. About John Howard: John Howard was born in Lower Clapton London the son of a wealthy upholsterer. His mother died when he was very young and after his father died the young John Howard, a rather strict Calvinist, found himself without vocational training, a disdain for the the English aristocratic lifestyle, and little direction. He began to travel and while in Hanover he was captured by French privateers and imprisoned. It was this experience that made him consider the conditions in which prisoners were held. In 1758 Howard returned to England and settled in Cardington, Bedfordshire. As a landowner he was philanthropic and enlightened, ensuring that his estate housing was of good standard and that the poor houses under his management were well run. In 1773 he became High Sheriff of Bedfordshire. On his appointment he began a tour of English prisons which led to two Acts of Parliament in 1774, making gaolers salaried officers and setting standards of cleanliness. Howard also toured European prisons and published 'State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with an account of some Foreign Prisons' (1777). Howard died of fever while visiting Russian military hospitals at Kherson in the Crimea. Howard's work is continued today by the Howard League for Penal Reform. http://www.tribalsoup.com/cache/howardconder.htm Any additional information about the coin itself would always be good. Thanks
Drusus,I have a very worn example of a Farthing of the same design,but it is still an interesting coin. Aidan.
It has a great portrait which is my favorite thing about coins...I do like interesting reverses though.
If you mean my comment, I did not mean it was not genuine 'a copy' depending on context does not necicerily mean a fake for example if you have a book it can be said that you have a copy of that book same goes for a coin. De Orc :kewl:
Very nice token, and an EXCELLENT write up. I can only add a little about the coin itself. There are only three tokens credited to Hickman, D&H 144, 145, and 146. But 146 was actually a mule of the Hickman reverse die with another die used for an anonymous issue in Middlesex, with an edge inscription used by a differnt merchant. It was most likely made simply as a piece to sell into the token collecting fad of the time. The fact that it is a very rare token would seem to confirm that. D & H 144 and 145 were actually both struck from the same set of dies. Dalton and Hamer say that 145 was struck first from and unfinished die before the second button hole in his coat was added. But the button hole is incuse on the coin so there is no way it could have been added later. #144 with both button holes was the first one struck and the raised feature in the die that formed the lower button hole was later removed from the die, possibly by die polishing (the lower button hole is very shallow) or maybe the raised feature in the die that created it chipped off. The dies were engraved by William Mainwaring of Birmingham in Warwickshire. Mainwaring also handled the manufacturing of the tokens striking five hundredweights of copper for Hickman. This amounted to a total mintage for the two pieces combined of 25,750 coins. Both D&H and Waters claim that the 145 is extremely rare and that only a small portion of the mintage were 145's. This is incorrect. D&H gives it a rarity of RRR which would mean around 7 o 12 pieces known. I own 4 of them and I have seen several others as well. In fact I find they tend to show up in unattibuted groups of tokens wth greater frequency than 144 does (of which I only own two.). I've only bought one of my 145's attributed. In a recent auction, where it was with two or three other pieces I needed. In the auction they specifically mentioned its rarity. In the same sale I picked up a second piece unattributed in a bulk lot. . I tend to find them with about equal frequency, another researcher who has been tracking appearances for much longer than I have reports that he has seen them on about a 3 to 1 ratio, I would say then that the 145 had a mintage of between 7 and 12 thousand pieces. It doesn't sound like much, but in Conder tokens that can still be considered to be a common to slightly scarce mintage.
