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1818: William Nicholson

Object number: 2008.0039.0031

1818: William Nicholson

Object number: 2008.0039.0031

Diameter: 36mm, thickness: 3mm

Front:

Token engraved with a border of leaves and rope designs, and cursive text:

When thiss you
See Remember me
in A foreign
Cantry

Back:

Token engraved with a crisscross border and a flower design at the base of cursive text:

Wm Nicholson
Transported
for 14 years
Janr 14th 1818

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Larysa Jaworski

5th Oct 2021

I wonder about the translation of the last word. To me, it looks like it says 'Country', but the first downstroke of the 'u' is too close to the 'o'.
I also agree with your thought that the second word is 'thiss'. The date of these is still within the timeframe of a double 's' looking very much like 'fs', so I think 'thiss' is much more likely than 'thys', as, if that were a 'y', the long second stroke would have been shorter (same height as the first downstroke). The engraver doesn't seem to have been sloppy in the heights of any of the other letters, so why this one?

Sophie_Jensen

25th Nov 2014

Hi Dave – thanks for your comment. We puzzled over this one too and debated ‘thiss or thys’ – either may in fact be correct. Part of our reasoning to go with ‘thiss’ was the clear dot you can see over the ‘i’ and the first ‘s’ looking like a cursive s. The other ‘ys’and ‘g’ on this token also have a very distinctive style which this one does not quite match. It is great to be able to zoom in and look closely at each token but at times it is very difficult to come up with a definite transcription.

Dave

21st Nov 2014

Absolutely fascinating! I had no idea of the existence of these valuable tokens.

Just a question - and it surely could be my ageing eyes - is that "thiss" or "thys"? It looks like a cursive "y" to me...

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