Welsh Journals

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a 'seminal milestone'. It is true that he uses an ample share of cliches, and refers to '1485 as a seminal date and a veritable milestone', but he does not associate himself with such threadbare metaphors, nor does he mix them to procreate the totally meaningless. s. B. CHRIMES Cardiff. WELSH TOKENS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Edited, with an Introduc- tory Essay and a Mercer's Inventory of 1673, by George C. Boon. National Museum of Wales, 1973. Pp. 144. £ 1.80 (post free £ 1.96). The National Museum of Wales has made an excellent beginning with what is intended to be a series of publications describing its collection of coins and medals. This schedule lists and illustrates 165 varieties of brass or copper farthing, halfpenny and penny tokens, of which all but thirty- seven are in the Welsh National Collection. The schedule gives details of place of issue, name of issuer and number of known varieties. The tokens are illustrated from direct photographs, and if a few of these are lacking in clarity, it is no doubt due to the poor condition of the originals. As tradesmen's tokens are a specialist interest, it is very helpful to have Mr. Boon's introduction, which considers the subject in general as well as in relation to Wales. The golden age was between 1648 and 1672, when corporations and individuals met a demand which was not being satisfied by the government. Some 128 private traders in Wales put out tokens, but the distribution map (p. 31) shows that tokens were not always used in places where one would expect to find them. Cardiff, for example, had a population of about 1,700, but produced no tokens. This and other examples raise the question of how far they were really necessary for the conduct of local retail trade. Although the large number issued is valuable evidence of the importance of shopkeeping in Wales in these years, the majority of tradesmen, as Mr. Boon points out, did not use them, and for those who did the motive may often have been advertise- ment or profit rather than the needs of retail trade. For full measure, Mr. Boon prints a long inventory of Griffith Wynn, mercer, of Caernarvon. Although this is only marginally related to the subject, it is very welcome because of the detailed picture it gives of the great variety of goods found in his shop. PATRICK MCGRATH Bristol. FARMING IN CAERNARVONSHIRE AROUND 1800. By R. O. Roberts. Caernarvonshire Record Office, Caernarvon, 1973. Pp. 91. £ 1.00. This attractively produced and modestly priced book contains a survey of the extensive 'Vaynol' (Faenol) estate in Caernarvonshire made around 1800, together with the editor's introduction. As Mr. Roberts indicates, we have general 'descriptions' and 'observations' on the rural economy of Caernarvonshire at the turn of the nineteenth century in the published