Owner Comments:
Pictured above is a 1794 Talbot Allum & Lee copper Cent, with New York, that features a lettered edge, thick planchet, and a reverse with a small ampersand. It has been graded MS 62 BN by PCGS. The estimated survival rate for this variety approximates between 500 to 2,000 pieces. These tokens have been variously categorized as Fuld-4, Breen-1032, and W-8590. Although relatively inexpensive, this coin carries an impressive provenance, having been in the following collections: F.C.C. Boyd; John J. Ford, Jr.; Lawrence R. Stack; and Sydney F. Martin.
HISTORY - Talbot, Allum & Lee (hereafter TAL) were the last names of partners, who in 1794, began a trading company, based near the docks of New York City, and which imported goods by ship from East India. To promote their enterprise through advertisement, they retained the services of the Peter Kempson & Co. Mint of Birmingham, England to produce some two tons of copper tokens, that generated over 200,000 pieces intended to circulate in New York City. The tokens, bearing the dates 1794 or 1795, were engraved by Thomas Wyon. Though of half penny size, they were designated as cents. Their obverse features a standing figure of the goddess Liberty, with right breast exposed in the French style, and holding a pole in her right hand supporting a phrygian cap. Behind Liberty is a bale of cotton symbolic of commerce. The top periphery reads "Liberty & Commerce", with some varieties distinguished by the size of the ampersand. The date occupies the exergue.
The reverse pictures a merchant vessel at sea. The earliest 1794 emissions inadvertently omitted the words "New York" intended to appear just above the ship. This was rectified, and the bulk of the 1794 tokens include this language. The ship's rigging varied between the two years of issuance. To read the full TAL legends, one must inspect both the edge of the token, and thereafter its reverse. The edge of the 1794 token reads: "PAYABLE AT THE STORE OF.", with the remaining legend continued on the reverse: TALBOT ALLUM AND LEE / NEW YORK"...with "ONE CENT" below. In 1795, the edge inscription was revised to read: "WE PROMISE TO PAY THE BEARER ONE CENT", followed by the reverse: "AT THE STORE OF TALBOT ALLUM & LEE NEW YORK".
TALS come in both thick and thin planchet versions. A few examples have plain edges, or have been fashioned in silver.
The TALS were the first merchant tokens made for America in substantial numbers. In fact, the company had such a sizeable surplus of them (including the particularly unpopular 1795 issue), that it was hard-pressed to successfully disburse them all. An unlikely purchaser of these excess tokens surfaced - the Philadelphia Mint, which in two installments, purchased about 52.000 pieces. The Mint was encountering chronic difficulties in securing sufficient quality copper to strike its quotas of half cents and cents.