NOONANS TO OFFER THE JOHN WHITMORE COLLECTION OF WORCESTERSHIRE TOKENS

A fascinating and rare token relating to Worcester Royal Porcelain will be offered as part of a collection of 69 lots of tokens and checks from Worcestershire dating from the 17th century onwards at Noonans Mayfair on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. Amassed by the late John Whitmore (1931-2016), they are being sold by his family.

Peter Preston-Morley, Special Projects Director (Numismatics) at Noonans explained: “The John Whitmore Collection of Worcestershire Tokens is the best such group ever to appear at public auction. It covers all corners of the county from Worcester to Kidderminster through to Bromsgrove; Evesham, Bewdley, Shipston-on-Stour, Stourbridge, Droitwich to Malvern and Dudley.”

One of the most interesting is a very fine and extremely rare white metal token bearing the motto W[orcester] P[orcelain] C[o] which is estimated at £200-£300.

As Mr Preston-Morley adds: “I have seen no other specimen like this. The Worcester Royal Porcelain Co, formed in 1862, traced its original founding to June 1751, and its royal warrant tag dated to a visit by George III in 1788. Porcelain tokens to the value of 2 shillings and a shilling, with inscriptions promising payment at the China Factory by William Davis, exist but are of exceptional rarity in commerce with the last specimen I saw was in 1998. Davis, by trade an apothecary in Broad Street, was the factory manager from 1751 to 1774, when he took over the business; he sold it in 1783 to the company’s London agent, Thomas Flight. The present piece perhaps dates to the first half of the 19th century, but its purpose remains unknown.” [lot 147]

Elsewhere in the collection is a large group of 29 rare tokens relating to inns in the city of Worcester, which is estimated at £500-700 [lot 129], while a very rare heart-shaped halfpenny from Bewdley, dated 1670, is expected to fetch £150-200 [lot 83]

John Whitmore, born on Christmas Eve 1931, developed an interest in collecting at an early age. This collection grew to be quite sizeable and, keen to learn more, he joined the Birmingham Numismatic Society. As a part-time dealer he began to invest in better specimens and this early success enabled him, after some years, to leave his job as a senior tax inspector in the civil service and turn his hobby into a full-time business. In 1983 the family moved from near the Lickey Hills to the Malvern Hills. Becoming aware of tokens and, specifically, those of inns, played into his passion for social history and eventually these became his main area of collection. As John’s collection grew, he wanted to ensure that the wider numismatic world would benefit from his years of research, so he wrote and self-published several books based on his collection and issues from Worcestershire in general.