Cloth Seal, Anne, Alnage, 1702 onwards, Ingrained, Image by StuE, Found by Wendy Mudlark.
Found on the Thames foreshore, 14mm, 2.9g.
Missing // head of Queen Anne // cursive AR ligature 1/2 to right, INGRAINED around top // missing
Inner discs from a four disc alnage seal, see No.152, Fig.27, Geoff Egan, Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93), "'Ingrained' indicates dyed cloth; in its proper sense it refers to the red dye, grain (or kermes ...), though by the eighteenth century the term may have been used of other red dyes. Very few alnage seals specify that they were for coloured cloths, and the ones that do appear to be of late seventeenth- / early eighteenth-century date (see Endrei & Egan 1982, 62 fig.10e for another with Charles II type head). These were probably issued as a result of the research by agents of the Duchess of Lennox and Richmond (the holder of the farm of alnage), who were seeking ways of enhancing the alnage/subsidy monies for their mistress. They would have come across the augmented charges for cloths dyed in grain during the medieval period and used these as a precedent (e.g. Stat. 27 Ed.III c4 of 1353, which had been noted by May in 1613 - 1971, 10). ... Compare No. 145 for stamp on the third disc.[the same ligature]"
