It’s been a busy month at AAL with people off working all over the place. However, find of the month comes from a site worked on in 2015 and came to Cat and Yvonne’s attention while they were packing it up for sending to the museum.

I was working on a site in the center of Lincoln; near the river. It was a bright but cold day in February and half of our trench was partially filled with water. To avoid missing anything significant I was metal detecting the base of a partially excavated trench; as we knew we wouldn’t be able to excavate any further under these conditions.

The metal detector went BEEEEEEEEEEEEP; this was a full signal, implying that it was a strong signal; usually associated with a metal alloy. I used a little ruff neck spade to excavate the hole, and because of the water had to scoop out handfuls of sand; running them under the detector. The metal detector went off and I realised I was holding something round and metallic; a lead token.

One side of the token

The other side of the token

I gave it a further rinse, and recognised immediately what it was. I’ve found quite a few of these in the past, but this one was a bit more special; it is very good condition with markings on both sides. Tokens like this were used between the 16th and early 19th century. This one has likely been cast in a mold, rather than clipped. The specialist (Mike) believes it
might be a Powell Type 3 which would be of 18th century date (Powell 2012).

It was probably either a gaming piece, or it was token used instead of currency when money was scarce.

It’s a nice find because it indicates the use of the area during that period, further it was recovered from a medieval context suggesting that it was intrusive. The preservation of the piece and having markings both side makes it particularly special; and one of my favorites!

Powell, D. 2012 ‘The 18th century Sophistication of the Stock Design‘ Lead Token Telegraph Issue 86.