Several of the things known in the street-trade as “curiosities” can
hardly be styled second-hand with any propriety, but they are so styled
in the streets, and are usually vended by street-merchants who trade in
second-hand wares.
Curiosities are displayed, I cannot say temptingly (except perhaps to a
sanguine antiquarian), for there is a great dinginess in the display,
on stalls. One man whom I met wheeling his barrow in High-street,
Camden-town, gave me an account of his trade. He was dirtily rather
than meanly clad, and had a very self-satisfied expression of face.
The principal things on his barrow were _coins_, _shells_, and _old
buckles_, with a pair of the very high and wooden-heeled _shoes_, worn
in the earlier part of the last century.
The coins were all of copper, and certainly did not lack variety.
Among them were tokens, but none very old. There was the head of
“Charles Marquis Cornwallis” looking fierce in a cocked hat, while
on the reverse was Fame with her trumpet and a wreath, and banners
at her feet, with the superscription: “His fame resounds from east
to west.” There was a head of Wellington with the date 1811, and the
legend of “Vincit amor patriæ.” Also “The R. Hon. W. Pitt, Lord Warden
Cinque Ports,” looking courtly in a bag wig, with his hair brushed
from his brow into what the curiosity-seller called a “topping.” This
was announced as a “Cinque Ports token payable at Dover,” and was
dated 1794. “Wellingtons,” said the man, “is cheap; that one’s only a
halfpenny, but here’s one here, sir, as you seem to understand coins,
as I hope to get 2_d._ for, and will take no less. It’s ‘J. Lackington,
1794,’ you see, and on the back there’s a Fame, and round her is
written--and it’s a good speciment of a coin--‘Halfpenny of Lackington,
Allen & Co., cheapest booksellers in the world.’ That’s scarcer and
more vallyballer than Wellingtons or Nelsons either.” Of the current
coin of the realm, I saw none older than Charles II., and but one of
his reign, and little legible. Indeed the reverse had been ground quite
smooth, and some one had engraved upon it “Charles Dryland Tunbridg.”
A small “e” over the “g” of Tunbridg perfected the orthography. This,
the street-seller said, was a “love-token” as well as an old coin, and
“them love-tokens was getting scarce.” Of foreign and colonial coins
there were perhaps 60. The oldest I saw was one of Louis XV. of France
and Navarre, 1774. There was one also of the “Republique Francaise”
when Napoleon was First Consul. The colonial coins were more numerous
than the foreign. There was the “One Penny token” of Lower Canada;
the “one quarter anna” of the East India Company; the “half stiver
of the colonies of Essequibo and Demarara;” the “halfpenny token of
the province of Nova Scotia,” &c. &c. There were also counterfeit
halfcrowns and bank tokens worn from their simulated silver to rank
copper. The principle on which this man “priced” his coins, as he
called it, was simple enough. What was the size of a halfpenny he asked
a penny for; the size of a penny coin was 2_d._ “It’s a difficult trade
is mine, sir,” he said, “to carry on properly, for you may be so easily
taken in, if you’re not a judge of coins and other curiosities.”
The shells of this man’s stock in trade he called “conks” and “king
conks.” He had no “clamps” then, he told me, but they sold pretty well;
he described them as “two shells together, one fitting inside the
other.” He also had sold what he called “African cowries,” which were
as “big as a pint pot,” and the smaller cowries, which were “money in
India, for his father was a soldier and had been there and saw it.” The
shells are sold from 1_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._
The old buckles were such as used to be worn on shoes, but the plate
was all worn off, and “such like curiosities,” the man told me, “got
scarcer and scarcer.”
Many of the stalls which are seen in the streets are the property of
adjacent shop or store-keepers, and there are not now, I am informed,
more than six men who carry on this trade apart from other commerce.
Their average takings are 15_s._ weekly each man, about two-thirds
being profit, or 234_l._ in a year. Some of the stands are in Great
Wyld-street, but they are chiefly the property of the second-hand
furniture brokers.