Cloth Seal, Colchester Dutch Community Seal, Tubular, 1571 onward

Cloth Seal, Colchester, Image by StuE, Found by PWS
Found in Colchester region.

Single disc cloth seal with circles and semicircles ( C O ?) in an oblong stamp often at right angles to the slot which took the attachment tape through the centre of the seal, crimping it in place.

The large numbers of these found in the Colchester region possibly suggests they were for local identification purposes, perhaps connected to a particular process and may have been removed before the cloths were transported further afield.

See:- Colchester Archaeological Report 5: The post-Roman small finds from excavations in Colchester 1971-85, Nina Crummy. (Leaden Seals for Cloths, G. Egan, P.34-35, figs 1944-1948)

“These seals all have a hole running diametrically through the flan. A tape or wire would have passed through this hole to keep the seal fixed in place. The stamped conjoined circles and semicircles in various combinations may give some kind of technical information which would have been useful to a limited number of traders or artisans. There are similar seals in the Colchester and Essex Museum (VCH 1907, fig 7,e,g, where they are described as maker’s seals, which may be correct), and an example found in London(A G Pilson collection) has in addition to the conjoined circles part of a stamp paralleled by devices on Colchester Dutch community cloth seals. Although there is thus a definite connection between these single-disc seals and the textile quality control system used by the Dutch in the town, the significance of the conjoined circles remains obscure."