Cloth Seal, Colchester, William III, Alnage, Crown

Cloth Seal, Colchester, William III, Alnage, Crown, Image by Karen Ellis-Andrews, Found by Roy Ellis.
Found on the Thames Foreshore, 18mm.

Blank // Head, OF ENG LAND around // rose, COLCHESTER curved down *3* curved up around // blank

The head is a Charles II type head that has tentatively been ascribed to William III - William III is recognised by his hook nose (admittedly not too clear on this image), see p.35, in G. Egan, Alnage Seals and the National Coinage – Some parallels in Design, British Numismatic Journal 61, 1991, p.31-36, pl. 4-5, "After Mary's death, the head used for William, clearly identifiable on a large number of alnage seals from his hooked nose (pi. 5, 12C), continues the style used for the heads of Charles and James, with a depiction just about as close to the representations of these earlier monarchs as it was possible to get. There are two engraved lines at the nose on the head in pi. 5, 12D (very faint), and it is tempting to think that the administrators of the alnage, which around this time was coming under increasing criticism for its ineffectiveness as a means of quality control, sought to save money by having a matrix for Charles or James slightly altered, rather than commissioning the cutting of an entirely new one. There is no hint of alteration on the great majority of seals attributable because of the hooked nose to William, so some new matrices must have been cut during his reign. The continued use of what was, in origin, an early-Restoration portrait of Charles II, through many developments in style on coins, is symptomatic of the inertia in an organisation that had outlived its usefulness to all but the tiny number of beneficiaries from the subsidy, who treated the entire business as a source of personal revenue."

The 3 refers to the alnage subsidy paid on the cloth this seal was attached to.