AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PROVINCIAL COPPER-COINS OR TOKENS, ISSUED BETWEEN THE YEARS 1786 and 1796

First [and only] edition. Nineteenth century full calf, ruled and stamped in blind with gilt decorated corner pieces to the upper and lower boards. Five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments and titles in gilt on a brown morocco label, to the spine. 141 pp. Marbled endpapers. All edges red. With the engraved title page. Errata leaf. Bookplate of John Deakin Heaton, MD to the front pastedown. A very good copy, the binding firm with some rubbing and scuffing to the spine and corners. The engraved title page is somewhat darkened with several notations in ink and pencil to the upper margin. John Deakin Heaton's autograph initials, dated 1867, are to the top of the letterpress title page. The contents are otherwise clean throughout. Scarce.

Samuel Birchall, ardent naturalist and antiquarian, is best known among present-day numismatists for his 'A Descriptive List of the Provincial Copper Coins or Tokens issued between the Years 1786 and 1796'. Privately published by Birchall in February 1796, at the height of the collecting mania for such items., it is an alphabetical reference to pieces in his own collection and those of a small number of other contemporaries, including Evesham's MP Thomas Thompson (1767-1818), the Bath grocer Lacon Lander Lambe who later emigrated to Washington, USA (1770-1860) and the London antiquarian Sarah Sophia Banks (1744-1818). Painstaking but relatively unsophisticated by present-day standards, Birchall lists over 1,000 different tokens and associated items, products of the new factories in Birmingham and elsewhere. Among them is the private token that he himself put out in 1795. Apart from tokens, Samuel Birchall formed valuable collections of British gold and silver coins, stuffed birds and beasts (these were sent to London for sale at the end of 1813), and mineralogy, maintaining extensive acquaintances with men of letters interested in similar pursuits in other parts of the country. Doubtless one of the sources for the coin collection was the dealer Henry Young of Ludgate Street, London, a token issuer himself in 1794 who was followed in business by his much better-known son, Matthew Young (1770-1838), issuer of his own private token in 1798 and a collaborator with Birchall on his List, for which Henry Young was the retail outlet. Described by Harold Welch as "probably the best contemporary list of this series of late 18th century trade tokens prior to Conder's standard work first published in 1798". [Noonans: British Coins from the Collection of Samuel Birchall of Leeds (1761-1814)].