By the 1790s, the Royal Mint had so thoroughly neglected copper coinage that merchants across England were forced to commission their own tokens to make change. Cambridgeshire tradesmen were no exception. The Conder token boom of this decade produced hundreds of distinct provincial issues, and the DH#36–38 sequence for this county reflects multiple die varieties catalogued by James Conder himself, a Ipswich draper whose 1798 directory remains the foundational reference for the series.
Parliament finally suppressed merchant token issues in 1817, rendering these pieces obsolete almost exactly two decades after striking.
By the 1790s, the Royal Mint had so thoroughly neglected copper coinage that merchants across England were forced to commission their own tokens to make change. Cambridgeshire tradesmen were no exception. The Conder token boom of this decade produced hundreds of distinct provincial issues, and the DH#36–38 sequence for this county reflects multiple die varieties catalogued by James Conder himself, a Ipswich draper whose 1798 directory remains the foundational reference for the series.
Parliament finally suppressed merchant token issues in 1817, rendering these pieces obsolete almost exactly two decades after striking.