The Colonisation of Newgate

Which brings us to another of those tokens which might have been, almost was, but finally wasn’t. Philip Parry Price Myddelton planned to escape what he saw as the oppression of British society by founding a new colony in Kentucky, an unlikely proposition as Kentucky, though not one of the original United States, had joined that union in 1792. Of course, all new colonies require money, so Myddelton wrote to Boulton in January 1796 outlining his plans for a token, and describing a rather less than usually imperial Britannia: with her head lowered, her spear reversed. Before her, the demons of Discord and Tyranny treading under foot the Emblems of Liberty and Justice. Küchler really had fun with this one, and his engraving represents an exuberant example of 18th century kitsch. Myddelton's dream of Kentucky was upset when, a few days before he was due to set sail, he was arrested for soliciting the emigration of artificers, and spent the next three and a half years colonising Newgate Prison. Only around twenty of the tokens remain to demonstrate what might have been.

And these issues close the story of the eighteenth century token coinage from Soho. There remain three issues from the nineteenth century, one large, one small, and one which hardly registers at all.

Surfaces offer pewter-grey patina that in turn shows minor hairlining in the fields, but this hardly seems relevant for a coin of this stature. The strike is incredibly well executed, and there are no marks at all, nor stains or corrosion to detract. (PCGS# 000649)