A Copper alloy 'Venus penny' stock jetton from the Low Countries, c.1490s-1550s, Mitchiner 844. The 'Venus pennies' were a popular series of jettons or reckoning counters, made for the merchants of Antwerp. This was during a period when this city was a flourishing principal commercial centre. They were circulated amongst the merchant classes before and during the first half of the sixteenth century. The circulation along the Thames foreshore is chronologically circa 1482 to 1555. The design of the figure of Venus is modelled on official jettons of Philip le Beau, or Philip I of Castile (1478-1506) from the 1490s. Obverse description: Austro-Burgundian shield (1482-1555) in five parts: Austria - 3 horizontal lines, Burgundy modern - 3 lis, Burgundy ancient - 3 oblique lines, Brabant - lion rampant with two annulets in field, surmounted by Burgundian emblems in form of steel and spark either side. Obverse inscription: Nonsensical. Reverse description: Woman holding a spray of three flowers, two rosettes and a central fleur de lis, in raised right hand, and a large petalled flower in lowered left hand, with rosette in left and right field. Reverse Inscription: Nonsensical. Dimensions: 30.38 mm Diameter, 1.34 mm Thick and it weighs 3.70 grams.