The Mystery of Henry Morgan

A Numismatic Detective Story by Andrew Wager

Paperback, illustrated, B&W, 144 pages.

On the back cover:

1811. The year in which concern about George III's continued ill health led to his son, the future George IV, being installed as Prince Regent and the beginning of the Regency period. The country was at war with the French dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the difficulties faced by the country's economy resulted in severe problems for traders and merchants in finding small changes to maintain the prosperity of their businesses.

Enter the mysterious Henry Morgan, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed inventor and manufacturer of private silver token coins, which were his solution to the crisis. In the period 1811-1813, he made private silver tokens for a range of businesses across England and Wales for anyone who wanted them and some who didn't!

In Bristol, a group of tradesmen accused Morgan of counterfeiting their tokens and thus bringing discredit to the whole idea of private token coinages. Counterfeits or imitations of a range of other silver tokens appeared in other parts of the country for which Morgan has usually been blamed. He also issued tokens which appear to be genuine but which contain a fictional address for the so-called issuer, thus making them impossible to redeem.

Who was Henry Morgan? Previous researchers have been unable to find out; he has been called a "myth". There was no record of his living at the address he gave in London, and it has been suggested that he didn't even exist but was merely a "front" for the respectable token manufacturers Thomas Halliday and Edward Thomason of Birmingham.

This book tells the story of one researcher's attempt to find out the truth behind this numismatic mystery. In doing so, the author uncovers previously unpublished archival material and a range of sources that have not previously been used by numismatists.

A must for all coin and token collectors, this book will also fascinate historians, genealogists, and anyone with a general interest in the Regency period.