Old Great Brittan Coins? 6 Images

[In2Deep]

So my friend John and I were out detecting last night. He has been detecting for 19 years, I been detecting for like a week. John hunts with a Whites Spectrum XLT and I of course have my eTrac.

It was a blast to hunt with someone that knew what they were doing, he agreed that the ball field we were in has never been hunting. We picked off a bunch wheat pennies at around 4". He pretty much whooped me because I still dont know exactly what I am doing

So John got 3 of these Great Brittan pennies, we were able to find a bit of information on the net, but was wondering if anyone else could shed some light on how common they are in Great Brittan or the history of them? Either way, it was quite the suprise for us to find them up here in the NE corner of WA state.

I tried to shrink the images as best as I could but left em big enough so they could be seen. I hope that nobody is on super slow internet waiting for these to download

 

[Doctorcoinz]

These coins from the UK are very very common finds. The value of the coin is basically it's weight in scrap value. I must have found literally bucket fulls of these over the years. The coins are called pre decimal. Although they are worthless i think most detector users still get a little feel good factor from digging a pre decimal. The silver ones like the sixpences , shillings , florins etc are the ones that are better to find but still pretty much worth only the scap value in silver unless it's a rare year mint or something or a Victorian era the George 3 are better but still not worth much!.......All we want to find really are the hammered silver.... I found a hammered silver Elizabeth 1 silver sixpence (1575) a few months back with the dfx , it went for only

 

[Erik in NJ]

Hi Brandon,

Interesting find for your part of the country! DoctorCoinz is spot on - while these coins are really fun to find here in the US especially the penny coins because they are so large (bigger than our large cents) - I've found a few here myself from around 1920 or so and got a kick out of finding them. It wasn't until I actually detected in England that I came to understand how long their history is and how short ours is. In England I was amazed to find that even Geo II or III coppers from the 1700's are fairly common in the ground and the English get about as big a thrill on unearthing one of them as we do with a wheat cent! I used to be envious of hearing someone dig a 1700's English or Irish copper here until I detected over there and saw how common they were and how little value they represented -- funny that if you go too far back here the coins are not as good. I did find a nice coin over there the first time I detected though - James II Crown from 1698 - this was not legal tender and has been termed "gun money" as they were struck from captured melted down cannon and would have had full face value had James II been able to capture the throne in England which he never did - Interesting piece of history and a somewhat rare find! As DoctorCoinz notes they are all looking for hammered and Roman and Celtic and prior. It's a whole different world over there and when you come back to the US you don't want to detect for a while -- even a seated coin doesn't seem to be that old anymore!

 

[JohnnyI]

"I used to be envious of hearing someone dig a 1700's English or Irish copper here until I detected over there and saw how common they were and how little value they represented"

eric, I guess value is in the eye of the beholder. I hunted over there too and found the same as you. As you know though, it's the scarcity of the early coinage in the colonies that make these "common" coins interesting and historic, as they tell a far more compelling story when found here. Personally I would much rather dig a a George the first penny from an early colonial spot over a gold pinky ring on the beach any day of the week.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Hi Johnny,

I hear you and agree - I was going to add something about the historical "value" of the find here, but forgot, if those coins could tell a story what an interesting tale they would tell; however, their intrinsic value is quite minimal if at all in the condition most are found - including the ones that I have found - not to take anything away from anyone's finds in this area - I am just trying to put it into perspective for myself that's all. As you know from detecting in England or any foreign country that has history it does something to your "US mindset."

I agree with you regarding the ring on the beach as I don't detect there much at all and certainly not for value of the find. I am usually more thrilled with an old relic of some sort that tells an historic story which in many cases has no intrinsic value at all - but I will always treasure it!

 

[JohnnyI]

Hi eric, I understand totally. Ha, anyone like yourself who enjoys digging square nails understands historic value. lengths of time is a funny thing to contemplate though. I was going through some England finds the other day and experienced that brief moment of being spoiled because my finds here were not as old as ones here. But once you start digging the old stuff here again, and putting it into perspective, then it becomes pretty cool again. I dug a hunk of smelted bog iron the other day...the quintisentiual historic ferrous junk, and now I'm thrilled to have found it. I read about how in the 1740's they gathered the bog sandstone; made a pit and smelted it right there in the ground. I visualized the whole process, and what the feelings might have been to lose this 6 pound hunk after working so hard to make it. Now after a little research my piece of junk is a "valuable find", at least to me.

 

[david.di]

[size=medium]Along with Australia's pre-decimal coins, many of the similar/same British pre -decimal coins are also very common over here. This is all mainly due to what I think is commonly known as......colonialism. Mainly settled, starting the 1700's by the early English pioneers/settlers and the English penal colony that we were...........

I sometimes am surprised as to why such coins are present at some sites I detect in around and near to here in the capital, in the south west of West Australian, Perth.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/pacific/australia/western-australia/

We are probably STILL one of the MOST isolated regions in the modern world and so I "wonder the $&#$.....are these coins at some of the sites I hunt , doing here in the first place.............?
There are many sites that I have hunted and still yet to detect and I can usually be sure they will turn up in anyone of them. One of the main reason's that keeps me detecting around such sites , apart from the fun in finding coinage, is also the prospect of finding what was also most commonly around in those days, a gold sovereign or two. Maybe a valuable key date silver or even copper coin. Old jewelry or just relics in general.

On one site I hunted, I found what were the metal remains of an old Martini-Enfield Mk I .303 rifle buried about 2 inches deep......very close to the old English penny that I had detected. It was a good high tone( ferrous 2 tone) target next to the iron barrel of this rifle. Had I only detected what was the low tone of that iron target , I still would have dug it.
Out there, it could have been anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini-Enfield

It wasn't a common issue in the Australian Armed forces. So what was it doing here , out in a very remote town , some 250 kilometers away form the capital city where I live........?
Who cares? I do......as, I find such questions interesting of what the origins of this target might be. That's also what keeps me detecting........regardless.

It's just so hard to say what you will find at such sites.

For me the thrill is "in the chase" and it also gets me out an about. Some of the sites , need some serious research( lots a reading and map study) and that is for me, that's part of the fun as well.

You may or you may never ever find a coin or anything else that has any value other than what you and maybe a collector/buyer can put on it.

Maybe, It's not always very profitable in money returns to some, none the less a great HOBBY. I can say that I have spent more time and money on on far less interesting hobbies in my life, I've had a few, but metal detecting, which I have done for some 31 years in one form or another, is still the most appealing hobby to me. Seems like to many others as well and I truly appreciate what it actually is.
I also believe that the only way one ever knows this, is to continue and maybe they might be "lucky" enough to understand what fun metal detecting can be and then the "rewards" of the finds might happen and that's only possible if you are lucky enough to walk over and detect the stuff that might be as monetarily rewarding a find.[/size]

I like your finds. Keep detecting. Who knows what you'll find next? Maybe research if there is any history as to why there are such English coins in your part of the world. Sustenance camp maybe, for the workers? Could be many reasons and there might be a good story or two to read about.

David Di

 

[Erik in NJ]

Hi Johnny,

Would love to see a pic of your find! Can you please share any links that describe how the made such bog iron?

Regards, Erik

 

[JohnnyI]

Eric and others, Here's a couple scans of the smelted bog iron. It will grab a magnet like any piece of good iron. I've added a bowl of stuff I found last week from the same area for scale. Here's a link on how they might have made this. http://www.usgennet.org/usa/nj/county/atlantic/Pinelands/BogIron.htm

<img src="http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj255/johnirwin_2008/iron1.jpg" border="0" alt="iron1">

<img src="http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj255/johnirwin_2008/iron2.jpg" border="0" alt="iron2">

 

[Erik in NJ]

Thanks for the interesting link! I particularly liked your bowl of relics - lots of interesting pieces there. The hunk of bog iron is very cool - how deep was it?

 

[edjcox]

You might have a hunk of Bog iron there or you might have a meteorite... A sure way to tell would be to have it sliced and get a handle on the purity of the metal... The surface looks like a meteorite with the oval depressions.

Nice no matter which ...

I used to live in Mt Holly, NJ not far from the Pinelands.. Lot's of mystery out that aways and a lot of British history as well. Pirates used the Rancocas Creek and sailed up as far as Mount Holly. Lot of British there during the revolution. If I still lived there I'd be hunting around town..

 

[In2Deep]

Wow, ask and I shall recieve!

Smelted bog iron, I have to say in my 35 years of life, that is not something that I have ever heard of. Thats a great find.

Even with the coins being worthless, the history of them is what keeps me so interested.. In anything, not just these old coins. Like how in the heck did they find their way to my small little town? Like my friend John said, they were probably a childs collection at some point and he dropped them. There were all three within a couple feet of each other and only down a few inches. If John ever finds his username and password he could tell you the story himself so I dont take all his glory

I found a casing the other day, its huge and its a rim fire. It must be pretty old, but thats not exactly the point. The fun part for me is knowing that thing has been sitting in the ground for how many years? and who shot it and what was hit with the actual bullet? thats the best part for me with this hobby!