Inner discs of a four disc alnage seal showing head of William III. On the other disc crown with 1 1/2 beneath.
William III is recognised by his hook nose. See p.64, Geoff Egan, 'Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum' Occasional Paper 93, "William III ... can be identified from his hooked nose. ... parallels with the same stamp on the third disc provide evidence for this attribution ... backed up by the RWR ligature" and Endrei, W. and Egan, G. 1982. ‘The sealing of cloth in Europe, with special reference to the English evidence’, Textile History, 13, 47-75, - Fig.10 (a). Also see p.35, in G. Egan, Alnage Seals and the National Coinage – Some parallels in Design, British Numismatic Journal 61, 1991, p.31-36, pl. 4-5, "After Mary's death, the head used for William, clearly identifiable on a large number of alnage seals from his hooked nose (pi. 5, 12C), continues the style used for the heads of Charles and James, with a depiction just about as close to the representations of these earlier monarchs as it was possible to get. There are two engraved lines at the nose on the head in pi. 5, 12D (very faint), and it is tempting to think that the administrators of the alnage, which around this time was coming under increasing criticism for its ineffectiveness as a means of quality control,21 sought to save money by having a matrix for Charles or James slightly altered, rather than commissioning the cutting of an entirely new one.22 There is no hint of alteration on the great majority of seals attributable because of the hooked nose to William, so some new matrices must have been cut during his reign. The continued use of what was, in origin, an early-Restoration portrait of Charles II, through many developments in style on coins, is symptomatic of the inertia in an organisation that had outlived its usefulness to all but the tiny number of beneficiaries from the subsidy, who treated the entire business as a source of personal revenue."
The 1 1/2 refers to the alnage subsidy paid on the cloth this was attached to.
