The Mercers' Arms

Robert West issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business in Chick Lane (area now part of Charterhouse Street).

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 619; Obv inscription: ROBERT.WEST.1667 (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Mercers' arms (in field); Rev inscription: IN.CHICKE.LANE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALFE / PENNY / R.A.W (in four lines of Roman capitals with triad of initials as bottom, in field).

The arms of the Worshipful Company of Mercers are: Gules issuant from a bank of clouds a figure of the Virgin couped at the shoulders proper vested in a crimson robe adorned with gold, the neck encircled by a jewelled necklace, crined Or and wreathed about the temples with a chaplet of roses alternately Argent and of the first, and crowned with a celestial crown, the whole within a bordure of clouds also proper (J. Bromley, The Armorial Bearings of the Guilds of London: a record of the heraldry of the surviving companies with historical notes; with...[illustrations] by Heather Child...(London, 1960). See also token number 6780 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. Chick Lane lies in the ward of Farringdon Without, in the City of London.