The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust cares for a relatively large numismatics collection, within which is a curious collection of around 20 tokens that are known as 'Nuremberg jettons', or 'reckoning counters'. The word 'jetton' comes from the French word jeter, to push or to throw, and these tiny counters played a central role in the world of commerce in the late medieval/early post medieval world.
If you were a merchant in medieval times and wanted to settle your finances, you couldn’t turn to a calculator like we can today. Instead, you would have used reckoning counters in conjunction with a chequer board. Today we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is in charge of Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the word “exchequer” simply means 'chess board'. It was upon these chequer boards that our counters would have been used to carry out calculations.
There is evidence the use of chequer boards and reckoning counters dates back to before 1118, though their use was mainly by government officials. Slowly the practice spread from governments to commerce, becoming increasingly wide spread and eventually requiring the mass production of counters. The first purpose-made counters were produced in England around 1280 and were around the same size as an Edwardian penny of the time. Indeed many counters were struck using same dies as were used for coinage, but counters were made of brass and often pierced to prevent anyone plating them to pass them off as coins. By the 15th century, France had the monopoly on the production of counters, but by the mid 16th century, Nuremberg had established itself as the primary producer of cheap, stock jettons which were known there as Rechenpfennige.
Nuremberg jettons were made in huge numbers and are extremely common today, turning up on almost every excavation in country. They carried a wide variety of designs such as horses, monkeys, shields, or bishops, as well as the orb symbol which is almost a trademark of a Nurumberg jetton. From the middle of the 16th century, it became common for tokens to carry their makers name alongside the designs. The most commonly found Nuremberg tokens are those with three crowns alternating with three lis around a central rose on the obverse, and an imperial orb within a tressure of three arches and three angles on the reverse. From the designs and names on the jettons it is possible to identify the date and country – and often town – of origin, and the maker.
The above image is a good example of the most commonly found jetton design of the Rose and Imperial Orb. It bears the name of Hans Krauwinckel who was a member of a family of jetton makers from Nuremberg. There were actually two Hans Krauwinckels, working 1562-1586 and 1586-1536 respectively. Over 90 different jetton designs have been attributed to this maker.
Reckoning counters fell out of use for accounting purposes in sometime in the 17th century with the change to accounting by written calculation was adopted. However, they continued to be used and produced as gaming counters, and the popularity of gaming houses grew. These were produced in low value brass, but at the other end of the spectrum, jettons in precious metals were produced as gifts or commemorative souvenirs.
Please visit the Chicago Coin Club for more information on these precious objects!