Not a Seal, Token, Image by StuE, Found by Nasher
Found on Clothall Common near Baldock, Hertfordshire.
Fleur-de-lis 4 fleur-de-lis / KENT / .W.M(.) // blank
From communication with David Powell, owner of the Leaden Token Telegraph, "Haven't seen anything quite like it, but am inclining to the same opinion as yourself; none of the usual seal giveaway features in evidence {not that I can really see the edge}, although I wouldn't absolutely eliminate the possibility. I think it is a very attractive piece, and thanks for showing.
By chance I used to know someone in Clothall, not that I have ever been there. he is dead now, more's the pity, I could have picked his brains on whether he knew anything of the history. In the Victoria County History for Baldock http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43582 {Google "Clothall" when you get there} there is a little bit about a wealthy London mercer who died in 1620 and left a charitable donation; don't know whether his activities have anything to do with the origin of the name or not. I wouldn't have though that the piece was that old; probably late 17th cent or 18th, at a guess.
Found where it was, I will conjecture that KENT is a surname rather than a location. W is one of the most male initials and M one of the most common female ones, so issuer W.Kent with wife's name starting with M is a possibiliity. Alternatively M is W's surname, again quite likely. WM/KENT/4 would look better to my view, but no reason why you shouldn't have the info the other way round. I'm favouring something like a fruit picker''s token {you get series 1,2,3,4,5,6 in the hop area}, but once again just best guess.
By chance you caught me when I was in the middle of genealogical research and had both Ancestry.co.uk and the National Burial Index up on my machine. I looked up surname Kent in Baldock; there is one young Kent family there in the early 19th cent, including a William Kent d.1839 aged 45, but his wife's initial was not M. There could be somebody in one of the adjacent parishes, of course, and in any case the piece is probably a little older than that; but genealogy works very much on a county basis, and Baldock is very near several county boundaries, thus making research more tricky. There could well be some more Kent families nearby; that William had to come from somewhere, and the odds are it will be from somewhere fairly local. There is another William Kent, d.1832 aged 80, buried in Ashwell, which is not too far away; plus you can't be totally sure that the parish they were buried in was the same one that they spent their working life in.
I think that the 4 is probably a 4 rather than a simplistic merchant mark, and I'll stay with the idea of it being a token on balance; 4 bushels or the like, or possibly even one of a numbered series of passes, although I think that is less likely."
See BSG.CS.01377 for a parallel example from a cloth seal and BSG.CS.01352 for a near parallel one.
The origin of these seals is probably solved see BSG.CS.01430. They are from four part seals for William Kent, a 19th century Suffolk clothier.
