Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore's Clerkenwell DH #164
Obverse: The front of a large private mansion LORD STORMONT'S WANDSWORTH SURRY
Reverse: The fictitious Arms of the Skidmore family surmounted by LONDON, P. SKIDMORE MEDAL MAKER COPPICE ROW CLERKENWELL
Edge: I PROMISE TO PAY ON DEMAND THE BEARER ONE PENNY X
Diesinker: Benjamin Jacobs
Manufacturer: Paul Skidmore
Rarity: Scarce
Wandsworth is a suburb south west of London on the Surrey side of the Thames River, about 6 miles from the City. The residence was one of the seats of William Murray, Viscount Stormont of County Perth, Baron Scone and Baron Balvaird, in the peerage of Scotland. In the English peerage he was the third Earl of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, succeeding to that title in 1796.
The family business of the token manufacturer Peter Skidmore was an iron foundry at 15 Coppice Row in Clerkenwell with a shop at No. 123 High Holborn. Skidmore realized that there was a market for tokens as the genuine tradesmen's pieces of the time were very keenly collected as they were issued.
Paul Skidmore was the son of Peter. This is from Skidmore's series of 20 ‘Clerkenwell Pennies' that featured well known Provincial buildings, - mainly Guild-halls, Hospitals and Palaces. They were issued them in quite small numbers - plus the dies that Jacobs engraved were quite brittle and many broke before the required number was struck. The coins were primarily sold to collectors but in these times of desperate need for copper change they often got into circulation alongside the regal copper and other genuine tradesmen's tokens.
Obverse die flaw in lower left.
Atkins: Middlesex 93
Bt. Bill McKivor