Spitalfields Market Tokens 5

We offer a collection of these rare and fascinating tallies for sale, each one embossed with the name of a trader from a century or so ago.  Evocative pieces of social history and evidence of long-gone commercial endeavour, they are also beautiful objects in their own right.

They make ideal, idiosyncratic, Christmas stocking fillers. Supplied in a gift box, they can be taken out and admired at your leisure or displayed on a shelf or mantelpiece. Or perhaps you'll do as Dennis might have done and incorporate one into a decorative scheme?

The fruit and vegetable market moved out of Spitalfields in 1991 and relocated to Leyton, East London. These coin-size tokens are some of the few items that remain from its historic heyday.

Market tokens, or tallies as they would have been known, were used in wholesale markets such as Spitalfields to denote a deposit paid on returnable packaging. In the 19th century, the vast majority of fruit and vegetables were supplied by farms in baskets, sacks or wooden crates. To ensure these were returned, buyers were charged a deposit and issued with  a token of the equivalent value - prices eventually ranged from 2d to £10. When the container was brought back with the token, the money was refunded.

Made of brass, copper, zinc or copper-nickel, tokens were used from around 1850 to the 1960s before being gradually phased out. Most were minted by Ralph Neal of Percival Street in Clerkenwell. 

Though such tokens were no longer in use by the time Dennis Severs moved to Folgate Street in 1979, the market itself was a constant backdrop. Operational only at night, it defined the area and added to the sense of Dickensian squalor and danger.

Traders and street people huddled round braziers to keep warm, shouts from traders rang throughout the night.

Evidence that Dennis frequented the market remains at his house: the grand four poster in The Master Bedroom and Dickens Room are made from wooden pallets he found there.