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1/2 Penny Hampshire - Portsmouth / Thomas Sharp
| Issuer | Thomas Sharp |
|---|---|
| Year | 1797 |
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| Currency | Conder tokens (1787-1797) |
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| Obverse description | Neptune (King of the Sea), standing to the right upon a sea chariot drawn by two sea-horses, holds a laurel wreath aloft in his right hand and grasps a trident symbolically in his left. He is depicted in the act of crowning Admiral Sir John Jervis, who is shown seated upon a rock, bare-headed and in full naval uniform, his left arm folded across his chest and a scroll held in his right hand. The composition is set against a maritime background of open sea, rendered in a neoclassical allegorical style characteristic of late eighteenth-century Conder token engraving. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | Sr. JOHN JERVIS WITH 15 SAIL PURSUED & DEFEATED THE SPANISH FLEET OF 27 SAIL OF THE LINE FEBRUARY 14th 1797 |
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| Additional information |
Thomas Sharp was a Portsmouth ironmonger who issued this token during the acute small-change shortage of the 1790s, when the Royal Mint had effectively abandoned copper coinage for decades. Provincial traders across Britain filled the vacuum themselves, commissioning tokens from commercial diesinkers — a practice tolerated rather than sanctioned. Sharp's issue is catalogued under Dalton & Hamer 65 and Atkins 42, placing it firmly within the documented Hampshire series rather than among the anonymous or speculative pieces that complicate attribution elsewhere in the trade token literature.