Token, trade token

Edmond Bannister issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business in Holloway Lane, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 2812; Obv inscription: EDMOND. BANNISTER. IN. HOLLO (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A lion rampant (in field); Rev inscription: WAY.LANE.SHORDITCH.1668 (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALFE / PENY / E.E.B. (in four lines of Roman capitals with triad of initials as bottom, in field).

The issuer is known to have been a cordwainer; 'Edmond Bannister of St Leonard Shoreditch, b. 1630, Cordwainer, Master 1691' (Percival Boyd, [Inhabitants of London]. Society of Genealogists, MS. 17307, as cited in token number 8150 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). Holywell Lane lay in the parish of St Leonard Shoreditch, in Middlesex; it is now part of the London Borough of Hackney.