The Coffee House

Joseph Howard issued this trade token, worth a penny, for his business, a coffee house, in New Street, Westminster, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 2057; Obv inscription: IOSEPH (around portion of field, in Roman capitals) Device = A man holding a cup with a pot pouring coffee into it; two pipes on a table (in field); Rev inscription: HOWARD / COFEE. HOV / SE. IN. NEW / STREET / 1671 (in five lines of Roman capitals, in field).

See also, NN17948, in the museum collection, for a slight variant see token number 9297 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 and, Bryant Lillywhite, London Coffee Houses (London, 1963), no. 590. New Street (now New Row) is in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, having formerly been part of Middlesex.