1 Shilling Yorkshire - Leeds / J. Smalpage & S. Lumb

Smalpage and Lumb were Leeds linen drapers, and this shilling belongs to the wave of private silver token issues that flooded the English provinces between 1811 and 1812 when the Royal Mint's chronic underproduction of silver coinage left merchants with no practical means of making change. Parliament had banned copper tokens in 1797 and silver ones followed under the 1812 act, making this issue legal for barely a year or two at most. Davis records only a handful of Leeds silver token issuers, and the Smalpage & Lumb piece is among the scarcer attributable to the cloth trade.