A fantastic "Billy and Charlie" lead coin or token depicting a pseudo medieval knight. During the mid 19th century the London archaeological community was disrupted by a controversy over the authenticity of a large number of mysterious supposedly medieval lead objects that appeared on the market. The "artifacts" duped many dealers and collectors and even found their way into several major institutions before eventually being exposed as forgeries. Billy and Charley, the eponymous forgers are shadowy figures and little is known about their backgrounds. They were mudlarks who searched the Thames looking for anything of value, selling to local antique dealers until they realised they could make much more money making forgeries. This seems to have begun around 1857 and it is reckoned that they produced somewhere in the region of 10000 forgeries over the next 15 years conning experts dealers and academics alike, however not everyone was taken in and eventually it all came out in the wash. One rather obviously flaw is the lettering which is just gobbledegook. Another being the dates written in Arabic numerals something that didn't happen until at least the 15th century. Personally I love these objects partly for the history attached but also for the naive artwork. Today they are finding there way back into museum collections and are starting to be regarded as works of art in their own right.

Diameter: 33 mm.