Dutch, Customs Seal, Conv & Lic, Image & Submitted by Andrew Jones
Found ?, ?mm.
Crowned shield bearing a lion rampant with sword in right hand and arrows in left* // CONV. / & / LIC.
*Component of the lesser arms of the Netherlands - billetty, a lion with a coronet armed and langued holding in his dexter paw a sword hilted and in the sinister paw seven arrows pointed and bound together. (The seven arrows stand for the seven provinces of the Union of Utrecht.) The shield is crowned with the (Dutch) royal crown.
From Paul Cannon, "The following is a seal matrix from Rotterdam Museum. From this it seems likely that CONV & LIC is Dutch for 'convooien en licenten' ie 'convoys and licences'. I think the Dutch phrase has the meaning of a payment for safe conduct of merchant ships or a tax on incoming and outgoing goods. I believe it relates to the customs legislation of the Netherlands see Wikipedia From this link 'In the formation of the Republic of the United Netherlands tolls were replaced by so called convoy rights and licence fees'."
Also from this Wikipedia source, "The names Convoyen and Licents disappeared for good at the coming into force of the Act on the upheaval of the Incoming and Outgoing Rights and Excise of the 12th of May 1819, Stb. 20 . With this law, the individual managements for convoys and licenses were abolished and merged with the indirect taxes departments."
*The arms, consisting of a crowned lion armed and langued, holding in his dexter paw a sword and in the sinister paw seven arrows tight together, were first used in The Dutch Republic of the Seven United Provinces from 1584 until 1796 when revolution replaced it. It was returned in its current form in 1815 by the first king of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, William I, who added the azure, billetty or with a lion rampant or of Nassau (blue shield, gold lion & billets) from his family arms. However the colour change of the background from red to blue cannot be seen on a lead impression although it is implied by the addition of horizontal lines and the only other visual difference is the billets from the house of Nassau (small rectangles on the background which are only faintly evident on some of the seals). This means the seals cannot be older than 1815.
See Mark Ouwerkerk's Dutch Customs Seals – Catalogue for excellent details about these types of seals, "On one side of this lead is the text “CONV. & LIC.”. This refers to the 'Convooien en Licenten' service that ceased to exist in 1819.
On the other side is a loosely shortened coat of arms without text. However, this national coat of arms was not definitively established until 1815. The customs lead can be dated 1815-1819. Customs Seal Convooien Licenten 1815-1819"
