- Code 090422-8
Wales, Swansea, Baron Spolasco. Farthing token.
Brass Farthing token. Diameter 23.8mm THE BARON SPOLASCO M:D: &c. THE REAL FRIEND OF THE AFFLICTED in three lines, curved, above and below his facing bust within inner circle. R. JANY 22D 1838 THIS EMINENT PHYSICIAN’S 5,000. RECENT ASTOUNDING CURES AND HIS NARRATIVE OF THE KILLARNEY IMMORTALIZE HIS NAME — SWANSEA STH WALES in eleven lines, first and last curved. Plain edge, not in collar. TB2 7610b Neumann 25895; Batty 1073. GVF/VF (the reverse slightly weak due to ghosting of the obverse) portrait. The obverse of this piece is a whole grade better than the Whitmore specimen illustration in TB2.
This rogue was listed in Swansea business directories from 1838 to 1845, trading from 2 Adelaide Place, and later moved to New York, USA. 'Baron' Spolasco was a quack doctor, born plain John Smith in Manchester in the 1790s. See TCSB vol.7, no.3. June 2002 pp 84-7. A showman, who escaped from Ireland, was unsuccessfully prosecuted for fraud and murder in Swansea and then made his way to London, and thence to New York, USA where he died in 1858 and was buried in New York.
