The Sunflower

Thomas Wilson, issued this trade token, worth a farthing, for his business in Drury Lane, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 886; Obv inscription: THOMAS.WILSON (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = IN / DRVRE / LANE (in three lines of Roman capitals, in field); Rev inscription: OVER.AGAINST.THE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A sunflower (in field). (Large).

The business is against a building recognised by the sign of a sunflower. 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. 410. See also token number 8709 in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 62, The Norweb Collection: Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750, Part VIII - Middlesex and Uncertain Pieces. Drury Lane, lies in the London borough of Camden, and the City of Westminster; it previously lay within Middlesex.