SP 57 – Now Out!

Special Publication 57 Tokens: Culture, Connections, Communities by Clare Rowan, Mairi Gkikaki, and Antonino Crisà, Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication no. 57, 248 pages; SBN: 0 901405 35 3.

We are pleased to announce the publication of RNS Special Publication no. 57 – the first volume dedicated to the study of tokens from the Neolithic until the modern age.

This volume examines different tokens from different periods in detail, addressing the makers, users, types and contexts of these objects.

Unpublished material is presented in several of the contributions. This comparative approach reveals the recurring characteristics of tokens across time, as well as their importance to human society.

The entire volume is FREE to download from the RNS website. Follow this link.

Those wishing to own a copy can buy it for £40 from Spink.

Contents:

• Introduction, by Antonino Crisà, Mairi Gkikaki & Clare Rowan
• The Invention of Tokens, by Denise Schmandt-Besserat
• Some Notes on Athenian Bronze Tokens and Bronze Coinage in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC, by Kenneth A. Sheedy
• Tokens Inside and Outside Excavation Contexts: Seeking the Origin. Examples of Clay Tokens from the Collections of the Athens Numismatic Museum, by Stamatoula Makrypodi
• The Armour Tokens from the Athenian Agora, by Martin Schafer
• A Rare Clay Token in Context: A Fortunate and Recorded Discovery from the Necropolis of Tindari (Messina, 1896), by Antonino Crisà
• Roman tesserae with Numerals: Some Thoughts on Iconography and Purpose, by Alexa Kuter
• Lead Token Moulds from Rome and Ostia, by Clare Rowan
• Tokens of Antinous from the Roman Province of Egypt, by Denise Wilding
• Tokens in the Athenian Agora in the Third Century AD: Advertising Prestige and Civic Identity in Roman Athens, by Mairi Gkikaki
• Using and Reusing Tokens: Some Remarks About Christian Graffiti on Contorniates, by Cristian Mondello
• The Holme Cultram Abbey Series: English Medieval Tokens and a Cistercian Use Case, by Kate Rennicks
• How Royal Tokens Constituted an Art Medium that Participated in the Monarchical System Between 1610 and 1661, by Sabrina Valin
• For Change and Charity: Identifying the Motivations and Characteristics of Issuers of Tokens in the British Isles in the Mid-Seventeenth Century, by Laura Burnett
• ‘Success to the Seventeen United Bright Stars’: The Spithead Mutiny of 1797 Recorded on a Sailor’s Love Token, by Bridget Millmore
• The Politics of Token Economics, Then and Now, by Bill Maurer
• Index