NOONAN OFFERS RARE GOLD BERKSHIRE TOKEN

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 18, 2025, Article 19

This press release describes a rare gold token offers by Noonans in their upcoming British Tokens and Art Deco Medals sale. -Editor

Noonans are to offer the highest value gold token struck in England - a very rare gold 19th century 40-shilling token from Reading, Berkshire depicting a bust of King Alfred. Dating from 1812, it is estimated to fetch £6,000-8,000, and is being sold as part of a single owner collection in the sale of British Tokens and Art Deco Medals at Noonans Mayfair on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, at 12pm.

Peter Preston-Morley, Special Projects Director (Numismatics) at Noonans explains:

"Tokens were a currency substitute issued by private individuals, merchants, and organisations when governments were not, for various reasons, issuing small change. They are mostly copper, although during the Napoleonic wars silver tokens were also made and circulated. This superb Reading gold 40 shillings was issued by philanthropist and reformer, John Monck and was bought 55 years ago. Very few of the original issue of 200 survive, however some examples must have circulated, albeit briefly and this token comes up for auction very occasionally."

The gold token bears the name John Berkeley Monck (1768-1834), who was educated at Eton, studied law at Middle Temple and settled at Coley Park, Reading, in 1796. A philanthropist and reformer, Monck was left a £100,000 fortune on the death of his father in 1809. In determining to do something about the state of the precious metal coinage in circulation, Monck had 70oz. of standard gold coined into 40-shilling pieces by Edward Thomason's Birmingham manufactory sometime in early 1812. Monck's plans for a second issue, the gold for which he advertised to buy in the Reading Mercury on 13 April 1812, were abandoned after an intervention by the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival, who himself was assassinated on 12 May 1812 while leaving the chamber of the House of Commons. Monck unsuccessfully contested one of the borough seats for Reading in the general election of November 1812; he was later elected MP for Reading in 1820 and again in 1826

Comprising 56 lots, the collection which is titled the ‘Royal Berkshire' Collection of Berkshire tokens, tickets and passes consists of 374 17th century issues, plus a further 189 from the 18th to the 20th centuries. It is expected to fetch in the region of £22,000.

As Mr Preston-Morley adds: "The collection was formed largely over a thirty-year period between 1965 - 1995 and is the most important and wide-ranging cabinet for the county of Berkshire that has ever been put together by a private individual. The owner, well-known to the principal dealers, diligently pursued opportunities to buy pieces from a range of sources. Even so, some 17th century issues continued to elude him so there are gaps in this section of the collection; he was, however, able to secure most of the pieces he needed from the fabled Norweb collection of 291 pieces that were not required for the National Collection and, along the way, some of the 181 tokens put together by Barzillai Lowsley, the first numismatist to study the county's tokens in any depth. Regretfully, the county still lacks a modern illustrated reference, and one hopes that the appearance of this collection will help to lead to such a volume one day."

Elsewhere in the collection is an even greater rarity - the companion silver 40 shillings which is believed to be the first specimen to appear at auction since 1968 and is estimated at £1,500-2,000 (Lot 27).

The collection includes examples from Abingdon, Bracknell, Bray, Bucklebery, Cookham, Hungerford, Lambourne, Maidenhead, Newbury, Sonning, Wallingford to Wantage, Windsor and Wokingham. Estimates range from £5 upwards.