Great Britain - 1794

½ Penny Token

(D & H 26 - Suffolk, Bury)
Obverse - Great Britain - 1794 Reverse - Great Britain - 1794
Obverse - Arms of the town of Bury St. Edmunds. (Azure, three pairs of arrows in saltire or, each pair enfiled with a ducal coronet of the last), and
Crest: (On a wreath above a helmet, a wolf sejant proper, holding between his fore paws the head of a man, couped at the shoulders of the last, ducally crowned or).
Legend:- SUCCESS TO THE PLOUGH AND FLEECE and a small ornamental stop.
Reverse - An imperial Crown within crossed laurel and palm branches, surmounted by the cypher P D in ornamental script capitals.
Legend: THE COMMERCE OF BRITAIN
Edge: PAYABLE AT P. DECKS POST OFFICE BURY .XX.
Diesinker, Wyon; manufacturer, Kempson. Five cwts. struck. Common.
 
Comments. This halfpenny was also issued by Philip Deck. The obverse displays the Arms of Bury St. Edmunds. Edmund, the young King of East Anglia, was killed by the Danes at Hoxne, in A.D. 870, by being made a target for the arrows of his enemies to whom he had surrendered. His head was cut off and could not be found until some forty days afterwards when it was discovered in a thicket of thorns guarded by a wolf. The crest and the crown and arrows in the armorial bearings of the town are in honour of the royal martyr.
Commercial Coins 1787-1804., pp. 170-171
D & H 26 - P. Decks Post Office
O: A very close copy of the preceding, but the wolf's head is about equidistant.
R: As last.
E:
A. 24
PAYABLE AT P. DECKS POST OFFICE BURY . X X .
 
A second example, the first being here.