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Lovely Silver Hammered Coin

Pete e

Elite Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2019
Messages
732
Location
North Wales, UK
Managed to snatch a couple of hours on one of my permissions earlier today…Have never found anything of note on it except white lead, but today my luck turned and this little gem popped out. Needs a clean, but did not want to do anything until I knew what it was….Somebody has now told me it’s an Alexander III of Scotland penny from mid to late 1200’s…Not something I was expecting to find in a field in North Wales!
 

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Congratulations! Something those of us in the US can only dream of.


^^ This ^^ Here in the USA we consider 1800s coins (LCs, seateds, etc...) to be "old". Yet in Europe, those dates are the nuisance new coins, eh ? :roll:
 
Come back and post when you have something old to show...... :p

Thats so friggen cool. Congrats.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words...

In some of the southern / eastern parts of the UK, hammered coins of all ages are not uncommon, and people find them every outing.

Up in North Wales where I am, they are much rarer. This is probably because historically the population was a lot lower, what population that was present was likely poorer, and finally due to different farming practices over the years.

I am now just trying to decide how much to clean the coin...I would like to remove the remaining dirt and also reveal some of the silver, but not over clean it....
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words...

In some of the southern / eastern parts of the UK, hammered coins of all ages are not uncommon, and people find them every outing.

Up in North Wales where I am, they are much rarer. This is probably because historically the population was a lot lower, what population that was present was likely poorer, and finally due to different farming practices over the years.

I am now just trying to decide how much to clean the coin...I would like to remove the remaining dirt and also reveal some of the silver, but not over clean it....

Nice one Pete.

Personally I would do as you suggest, clean water only.

Possible coin came from the trade routes around your area being the coin is a long way from home.
 
Thanks Doug,

I was hoping the field might produce an Elizabeth 1st of somesort, as I have had a couple from other fields near by, but I was not expecting this......The field is fairly small but some of the older maps show a couple of wells with a footpath passing them both so I always thought it should produce something.

The area also has a lot of BA history, but being mostly pasture, I think any such finds will be really deep by now..

I am not sure what to make of the large amounts of white lead present...it looks like casting waste...the other fields are relatively clear of the stuff, but in this field it forms about 90% of the non ferrous signals...

Re the cleaning...I am going to try to remove/reduce the black on the high areas to bring out the detail and perhaps mimic how it may have looked in circulation..

Regards,

Peter
 
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Congrats on that historic find Pete.

Just curious though… you’ve included a scale at left and bottom of photo, but no markings on scale to show what those increments are so not easy to determine the size of that coin. Can you elaborate? Thanks
 
Congrats on that historic find Pete.

Just curious though… you’ve included a scale at left and bottom of photo, but no markings on scale to show what those increments are so not easy to determine the size of that coin. Can you elaborate? Thanks

Jim,

The smaller divisions of the scale are Millimetres as we're are nearly all metric here in the UK..

I ve just put a caliper across the coin an it's about 3/4 of an inch in diameter...

Being as silver changed its value over time, the sizes of these hammered coins varies quite a bit. I have some later ones from the 1550's that from memory I would say are probably nearer 1/2 inch...

We also get cut halves and cut quarters of many of these pennies and they really are small!


The one thing that is common to all these hammered coins is that they are very thin, and I have seen one broken (probably already cracked) just by dropping it on a concrete floor..

Regards,

Peter
 
Great coin, I honestly wouldn't clean it at all. The dirt gives it more pop and stands out the details and to me makes it great to display. Cleaning it, it becomes another coin.
 
Fantastic find.
I am not an expert, but I have two cleaning possibilities for you to consider
1) a bit of liquid dish detergent, toothbrush, warm water (procedure is obvious, just gently scrub it)
2) a small amount of baking soda, aluminum foil , and a very small amount of warm water.
(procedure , make a small bowl of foil, dissolve baking soda in warm water, pour just enough to cover coin, watch and wait 10 - 15 minutes, remove and rinse in clean water) repeat as preferred
 
That is fantastic Pete.
Im in Scotland and never found anything like it.
To be honest i should claim it back for us North of the border :lol:
 
Outstanding find my friend. UK is probably the best metal detecting hunting grounds in the Western world. Just my opinion.
 
Thanks again everybody for the kind words!!!!

Brewser: Keep looking my friend; you never know what's going to come up on the next swing! I seem to go weeks sometimes months without a decent find, then usually when I least expect something nice comes up...just got to keep the faith!

Maxxkat: As far as detecting goes we are fairly lucky as besides a lot of different historic periods here, our laws also allow us to detect, unlike some other countries, so all in all its a good situation...
 
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