Cloth Seal, Cloth Worker's Personal Seal, Privy Mark, 4xx,TB, 1500~1825

Cloth Seal, Cloth Worker's Personal Seal, Privy Mark,TB, Image by StuE, Found by Nasher.
Found in North Hertfordshire / Cambridgeshire area, 30mm, 20.0g.

Privy mark in beaded border consisting of a figure 4 with the horizontal arm extended and terminating in a barb that points up to the apex of the 4. The vertical leg of the 4 extends down and is crossed by a horizontal line with barbs at either end that also point upwards towards the apex of the 4. The vertical leg continues with the initials TB either side and terminates in an inverted V with an upright V crossing. The other side has two lines of figures scratched into it and interpreted as - ASBIV / 830. Most interestingly there is lettering on the joining strip between the discs - COL can be clearly seen on the privy marked side but it continues around the bend onto the other side giving COL?(H?)(M?)C.

See Geoff Egan, Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M., B.M. Occasional Paper 93, p.78, "Clothiers', weavers' & searchers' seals with privy marks etc." No.220, Fig.31 he tentatively dates as late eighteenth century to early nineteenth based on style but No.241, Fig.32 is judged to be "(?)sixteenth- to eighteenth-century." Both of these have a privy mark based on the number 4 resting on XX and an initial to the sides of the 4's extended vertical but not the horizontal line with barbs at either end. There are differences in the style of the figures and border but it is hard to be certain of them, particularly on the average worn and incompletely struck seal. The same format of privy mark is found on London Dyers' Company seals, No.267, Fig.35 (ibid) and these are dated more closely from the late sixteenth- to seventeenth centuries. Assuming the entire date range is the safest if not the most definitive course of action, 1500 - 1825.