The Sun

This trade token, worth a farthing, was issued at the Sun tavern in Bishopsgate Street (now Bishopsgate), Bishopsgate Ward, City of London.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 219; Obv inscription: AT.THE.SVNN.IN (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The sun in splendour (in field); Rev inscription: BISHOP.GATE.STREETE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = W.I.A. (triad of initials in Roman capitals, in field).

The sun is a symbol commonly used by distillers (producers of alcoholic spirits, being part of the Company Arms'. See also NN16505 in the museum collection, and token number 6588 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 and 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. 168.