Cloth Seal, Packer's, Image & Found by Derfel.
Found on the Thames foreshore, 27 x 21mm.
A two part seal with the name of the packer around the outer ring (largely missing) and in an inner pelleted border are initials S ?. The other side has 28 1/2 scratched into it and underlined.
See Geoff Egan, No,266 Fig.34, 'Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum' Occasional Paper 93,:- "Packers were those who, in the present context, made sure cloths were 'packed into proper parcels fit for exportation', and some became international traders in their own right... A number of packers' seals are known, with full personal names ... They appear to be (and may all be) of eighteenth/early nineteenth-century date. Several include 'London' in the stamp (no other placename has so far been recorded on this category of seal). Some packers' seals were found ... in the U.S.A."
