Winchelsea's late eighteenth-century token issues emerged from the near-total collapse of regal copper coinage in circulation — the Royal Mint had struck virtually no halfpennies between 1775 and 1799, leaving provincial commerce to fend for itself. Hundreds of merchants, towns, and consortia across Britain plugged the gap with privately issued copper tokens, and the Winchelsea pieces are among the more localized Sussex examples, circulating within a community that had itself shrunk dramatically from its medieval peak as one of the Cinque Ports.
D&H Sussex 6 is the standard Dalton & Hamer reference attribution for this type.
Winchelsea's late eighteenth-century token issues emerged from the near-total collapse of regal copper coinage in circulation — the Royal Mint had struck virtually no halfpennies between 1775 and 1799, leaving provincial commerce to fend for itself. Hundreds of merchants, towns, and consortia across Britain plugged the gap with privately issued copper tokens, and the Winchelsea pieces are among the more localized Sussex examples, circulating within a community that had itself shrunk dramatically from its medieval peak as one of the Cinque Ports.
D&H Sussex 6 is the standard Dalton & Hamer reference attribution for this type.