Owner Comments:
Croom's ND (1795) halfpenny
REFERENCE: Angusshire-Dundee D&H 12
DIAMETER: 29 mm
WEIGHT: 9.9 g
COMPOSITION: copper
DIESINKER: Noël-Alexandre Ponthon
MANUFACTURER: Matthew Boulton (Soho Mint)
RARITY: common (more than 150 known)
OBVERSE: City of Dundee coat-of-arms: ""PAYABLE AT W. CROOMS", "HIGH STREET DUNDEE"
REVERSE: inscription: "SELLS WHOLESALE WOOLEN & LINEN DRAPERY GOODS WATCHES &c &c CHEAP"
EDGE: plain
William Croom was a wholesale dealer of drapery goods, watches and sundry articles doing business out of the Union Hall on the High Street in Dundee, Scotland .... cheapness appears to have been his overriding concern. Not much is known of him, but we do know in April 1791 he married Anne Speid, a local merchant’s daughter and later ‘the lawful daughter of the deceased James Speid, Merchant Burgess of Dundee'. He attained the estate of the Merchant Burgess himself in October 1794 and became a significant Dundee merchant family by the early part of the 19th century before gradually disappearing from prominence.
The above token (DH-12) was intended for general circulation with a total mintage of 26,437. An additional 27,048 tokens (DH-13) were also minted by Boulton in early 1796. Afterwards Crooms complained to Boulton about costs due to a rise in the price of copper. He then turned to Kempson (apparently a cheaper manufacturer) who produced similar tokens (DH 14,15) without using a collar and at a lighter weight after his engraver, Wyon, had laboriously copied the original design.