Tokens from the Late David Griffiths Collection

Numismatists Tokens and Ephemera, YORKSHIRE, Leeds, Gerald Chorley, [1913], uniface convex obv. trial, copper, crest of a falcon’s head surmounting a Cap of Maintenance, 26mm, edge stepped, 14.54g (Bell, 1966, p.297, this piece mentioned). Virtually as made with much original colour; possibly the only known specimen £200-£300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Tokens from the Late David Griffiths Collection.

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Provenance: R.C. Bell Collection; W.J. Noble Collection, Noble Numismatics Pty Auction 61B (Melbourne), 3-4 August 1999, lot 439 (part) [from Spink 1975].

Gerald Lorenzo Chorley (1848-1933), 17 Cromer terrace and later 23 Lyddon terrace, Leeds, formerly manager of a cotton mill in Manchester, was the son of Dr Henry Chorley (1810-78), a respected surgeon and JP at 8 Park square, Leeds. It was Henry who commissioned Halliday of Birmingham in 1836 for two dies for striking buttons for the livery of his coachman, the design being that of a falcon’s head on a Cap of Maintenance. One of these dies was utilised by Gerald Chorley, who had recently become a member of the Yorkshire Numismatic Society. Chorley had a new reverse die made in 1913, probably by J.A. Restall, and had 6 pieces struck in silver, 6 in gilt-copper, 25 in bright copper, 25 in bronzed copper, together with two uniface strikings of the obverse and reverse (YNS Transactions I, p.98 [1913])