The Mercers' Arms

William Lillystone issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business at Tower Ditch, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 3182; Obv inscription: WILLIAM.LILLYSTONE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Mercers' arms (in field); Rev inscription: AT.TOWER.DICH.1667 (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALF / PENY (in three lines of 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).See also token number 8461 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. Tower Ditch, later Little Tower Hill (now Tower Hill), lay in Stepney, Middlesex; the area is now part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.