The Mercers' Arms

John Murdock issued this trade token, worth a farthing, for his business near Holborn Bridge, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 1437. Obv inscription: IOHN.MVRDOCK.NEARE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Mercers' arms (in field); Rev inscription: HOLBORNE.BRIDGE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = I.B.M. (triad of initials in Roman capitals, 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). Holborn Bridge lay 'at the east end of Holborn Hill and north end of Fleet Market over the Fleet, at its junction with the Holborn, when the streams flowed openly through the City' (see Henry A. Harben, A dictionary of London (London, 1918).