The Blue Boar

This trade token, worth a farthing, was issued at the signof the Blue Boar in Bishopsgate without, Bishopsgate Ward, City of London.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 277; Obv inscription: E.C.AT.THE.BLEW.BOORE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A cross pattee (n field); Rev inscription: WITHOVT.BISHOP.GATE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A boar (in field).

There is another similar token in the museum collection, 96.66/182. See also token numbers 6641 and 6642 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.The blue boar was the badge of the Earls of Oxford, see 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. 182, it was also a symbol commonly used by apothecaries.