The Horse

George Starckey issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business, the White Horse tavern in Basinghall Street.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 139; Obv inscription: GEORGE.STARCKEY.AT.THE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A prancing horse (in field); Rev inscription: IN.BASINGHALL.STREET (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALFE / PENY (in three lines of Roman capitals, in field).

George Starkey was a draper by trade, but seems to have been the proprietor of the White Horse tavern at the time of his death, P. Boyd roll of the Drapers' Company of London (Croydon, 1934) no. 38786. See also token numbers 6538a and 6538b 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. 127. Basinghall Street is in Bassishaw Ward and Coleman Ward, in the City of London.