Nov 12 2008
700 Year Old Pennies Found in Wales - On the SURFACE
Some people just have all the luck.
First off - Peter Barker Jones is lucky enough to live in Flintshire, Wales where there is plenty of history just layin’ around, waiting to be picked up.
Secondly - He didn’t even have to use a metal detector to find a 700 year old penny that was just lying on the surface.
So here’s the story: According to Newspost Online, archaeology enthusiast Peter Jones was walking through a field that belonged to a friend when he saw something lying on the ground. He picked it up, rubbed it with his hand and realized he was holding an old silver coin. A year later he took a metal detector to the same spot and again, found two similar coins along the surface.
Jones says he has always been interested in local history and was searching for old flint tools where he believes the site of a Neolithic camp was when he happened to see the coin. “I regularly look for flint tools on the field and another one next to it, and I have found about a hundred old knives and arrow heads which I think are from between 8,000 and 2,000 B.C.”
“I declared the coins to the archaeological society in Denbighshire and followed all the proper procedures to say what I had found.
“I knew they were probably pennies from the Edwardian age, but I didn’t know what would happen to them at the time, or how much they were worth.”
The coins were sent to National Museums Wales, where experts examined them and confirmed they were silver pennies, from the reign of Edward I and Edward II, from 1309-1327.
The report stated that two of the coins were minted in London and one in Canterbury, and they are all believed to be made from silver with about 90 per cent purity.
Seriously - some people just have all the luck. Check out Evening Leader for more pictures and information.
