William Joseph Taylor, Pattern in White Metal, obv A bust of Queen Victoria in profile to right, W. J. Taylor beneath. Around the perimeter VICTORIA REGINA, rev A female seated, with military trophies. J Milton F. below, edge plain (D&H unlisted, noted as D&H Ayrshire 7bis)
Minor marks otherwise virtually as struck. Excessively rare and likely unique. This is the only example traced.
It has been speculated that the Victoria die was by, created by, or for W. J. Taylor and struck as a pattern to be used for a medal for Queen Victoria. Evidently nothing came of it and this is the only recorded use of the die. The reverse die was engraved by John Milton some years earlier and originally paired with an obverse depicting Adam Smith (see D&H Ayrshire 7) It is interesting to note that the reverse die exhibits a faint die break but is clearly an earlier state of the die than appears on many of the Ayrshire 7 tokens indicating that those were struck sometime after this specimen, certtainly no earlier than the late 1830's.
Provenance: F. S. Cokayne Collection (from A. H. Baldwin & Sons); Norman Brodie Collection, DNW Auction 55, 8 October 2002, lot 152; David Griffiths Collection, DNW Auction T12, 3 October 2012, lot 389