Halfpenny - London Ratcliff / Nich Watts

Issued under the trade token ordinances that filled the catastrophic small-change vacuum left by the Crown's refusal to mint regal copper coinage, this piece was produced by Nicholas Watts of Ratcliff — then a riverside hamlet east of London, heavily dependent on the Thames shipping trade. Parliament had effectively abandoned the problem of petty currency, so tradesmen across England took matters into their own hands between 1648 and 1672, flooding local economies with privately issued copper. Regal halfpennies did not appear until Charles II finally authorised tin and copper coinage in 1672, at which point tokens like this were officially suppressed.