BSG.CS.00637 — Cloth Seal, Bale Seal?, Stuart Arms, P

Found on Thames foreshore.

P, COM ... in annulus of pellets (double stamped) // Stuart arms of Britain, I to right (partial loop attached near harp)

A puzzling seal. The markings are those of a cloth seal, P at the centre of an annulus of beads containing inscription COM (County) and the Stuart Arms from the reign of James I or II due to letter I to its right. However the disc seems to be a complete casting with nothing missing. If the incomplete loop was part of a rove disc or a connecting strip then one of the images would have been hidden against the cloth it was sealing, as it would if other discs were connected at any other point. Also one side appears to have been double struck but these county designs were normally cast on inner discs.

Gary Bankhead has found another example of this seal that clearly shows the county name to be EBORVM (B 1071 Bankhead forthcoming publication).

See BSG.CS.01173 and BSG.CS.00301 for other examples.

See 1387 p.306 vol.1 and p.410 vol II in Loden zegels en verzegelingen by Raf Van Laere, 2019 for another example.