Cloth Seal, Norwich Weavers' Company Seal, Worsted Reformed
Cloth Seal, Norwich Weavers' Company Seal, Worsted Reformed, Image by StuE, Found by Nasher.
Found in Hertfordshire near Baldock, 20 x 24mm, 7.9g.
WOR / STED / REFOR / MED // 2.7 with foliate scroll-work embellishments above, below and to sides.
The 2.7 stands for 27 yards length of the cloth it was attached to.
See Geoff Egan, No,87 Fig.22, 'Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum' Occasional Paper 93,:-
"NORWICH WEAVERS' COMPANY SEALS
Two seals were attached, one at each end, to every worsted examined at Norwich from the mid-seventeenth century until 1705 (when sealing there ceased). One seal had the surname initials of the twelve wardens of the Company for the particular year and 'Norwich', and the other had 'worsted reformed' and the length in yards of the piece, as measured.... Lists of wardens for most years in the late seventeenth century are given in the Mayor's Court Books at Norwich Record Office, allowing the exact date of issue of some of the seals to be established...
'Worsted reformed' seals are among the most common and widely found of all kinds, attesting a large national and international market for the late seventeenth-century Norfolk worsteds they represent. Published examples have been found in London.....or their find spots are unrecorded..... Unpublished ones have been found in at least a dozen English counties, as well as in Sweden...and at colonial sites in the U.S.A.... "