Whist scoring tokens, obverse. (click to enlarge) |
Whist scoring tokens, reverse (click to enlarge) |
The reverses, numbered 1 to 3, are pictured on the right. The set would have been completed with another counter numbered 4. The tokens are quite small, 17 mm in diameter, weighing 1.3 grams.
The counters are charming, but are they credible? Certainly, the date cannot be right. Hoyle's first book was published in November 1742 and there is no record of him prior to that time.
Is the portrait of Hoyle authentic? For well over a century, people have been searching for such a portrait. In a piece in Notes and Queries titled "Edmond Hoyle," "Xylographer" asked "Do there exist any engraved or other portraits of the author of the treatise on Whist?" (10th Ser. ii 409. November 19, 1904) Bibliographer Frederic Jessel (I discuss Jessel and Marshall here, and Cavendish here) replied:
Exhaustive inquiries were made by "Cavendish" and by Mr. Julian Marshall, but they both failed to discover any portrait of Hoyle (see 7th S. vii. 482). Since then I have examined a large number of catalogues of portraits without any result. I possess, however, a bronze medalet, rather smaller than a sixpence, bearing, on the obverse, a bust to the left, with the inscription "Edmund Hoyle"; on the reverse, the figure 4. It has been pierced, and was probably intended either for a whist marker or for the badge of membership of a whist club. The bust is very clearly cut, and the features are of a strongly marked classical type. The medalet appears to be of eighteenth-century workmanship, and gives me the impression that it represents a likeness, not a fancy head." (10th Ser. ii 536. December 31, 1904)It sounds as though Jessel may have the counter missing from my set! But his is inscribed "Edmund Hoyle" and mine "Hoyle." It is clearly a different counter.
Mitchiner 5644 (click to enlarge) |
Mitchiner 5646 (click to enlarge) |
Mitchiner writes:
The date when these counters were made and their place of origin, must remain uncertain. They appear to be the earliest counter made specifically for the Game of Whist. One can suggest that manufacture was in the late eighteenth century. (p1858)
As I look at the three portraits, they do not appear to be of the same person, so I reject Jessel's suggestion that this is an actual likeness of Hoyle.
Withy, Hoyle abridged (click to enlarge) |
Jones 1796, page 3 (click to enlarge) |
Jones 1796, page viii (click to enlarge) |
One last thought. The four-token system for scoring at whist was likely introduced not long before it's first appearance in print in 1791 and that seems like a reasonable date for the tokens with the left-facing bust. If Hoyle had died some twenty years earlier and no portraits of Hoyle exist, could that possibly be Hoyle's likeness on the tokens?
I have all 4 tokens and neck holder. How much are they worth?
ReplyDelete