The Still

Michael Symonds (or Simons), a distiller, issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business on Aldersgate Street, Aldersgate Ward, City of London. The image on the token depicts a still, a piece of equipment used in the production of alcoholic spirits.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 56; Obv inscription: MICHAELL.SYMONDS.AT.THE (around field, Roman capitals) Device = A still (in field); Rev inscription: IN.ALDERSGATE.STREET (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALFE / PENNY (in three lines of Roman capitals, in field).

Michael Symonds (or Simons) of St Botoph without Aldersgate, was born in 1636. He was made free of the Distillers' Company in 1659 and bound apprentices in 1661-94 (C. Webb, London Livery Company Apprenticeship Registers, (London, 1997) vol. xi. Distillers' Company 1659-1811, 3, 26 &c), remaining active until c.1700. See also token number 6447 in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 59, The Norweb Collection: Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750, Part VII - City of London and J. H. Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens current in the Seventeenth Century, presented to the Corporation Library by Henry Benjamin Hanbury Beaufoy, 2nd ed. (London, 1855), no. 93.