Cloth Seal, Colchester Dutch Community Seal, Tubular with Crown

Cloth Seal, Colchester Dutch Community Seal, Tubular with Crown, Image & Found by Peter Eggers.
Found in 1982 centre of Amsterdam, at the building site of opera / townhall, 'de Stopera', 19 x 28mm.

Crown / 1571 // griffin

A tubular or 'pipe' seal used by the Colchester Dutch immigrant weavers.

See p.386, Elton, S., Cloth Seals, An Illustrated Reference Guide to the Identification of Lead Seals Attached to Cloth: from the British Perspective, for an overview of these tubular seals and their use, and see p.390 & 391 for two further examples.

See No.36 Fig.15, Geoff Egan, 'Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum' Occasional Paper 93, p.33, "The incomplete griffin stamps ... are from dies for broad seals (cf. Nos. 25-32)."

From the finder, "In that period there was no problem metal detecting in the heart of Amsterdam."