The King's Head Tavern

This trade token, worth a farthing, was issued at the King's Head Tavern in Chancery Lane, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 510; Obv inscription: THE.KINGS.HEAD.TAVERN (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A bust of Henry VIII (in field); Rev inscription: AT.CHANCERY.LANE.END (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = T.A.K. (triad of initials in Roman capitals, in field).

There is another similar token in the museum collection, NN16634. The token was issued by Thomas Kent, a vinter (wine merchant), at the King's Head c.1630 - 1660, see Kenneth Rogers, 'On some issuers of seventeenth-century London tokens whose names were not known to Boyne and WIlliamson', NC, 5th series 8 (1928), p.68). See also token numbers 6749a, 6749b and 6749c 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. 288. Chancery Lane lies within the London boroughs of Camden, City of Westminster and City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without, having formerly lain across, Holborn and Westminster in Middlesex, and the ward of Farringdon Without, in the City of London.