I’m one farmer who has been coining it in
WHAT do an 1863 American dime, a Chinese coin with a square hole in the middle and an Arabic coin with a date of 1334 all have in common?
The answer is that they were all found in one of our fields when a group of metal detectors spent a day combing the ground with their hi-tech machines.
We were all at a bit of a loss as to why such a surprising collection of coins was found in what has always been a pretty run-of-the-mill field.
The money was spread over a fair old area and a number of more recognisable coins – such as a multi-sided threepenny bit, a few old ha’pennies and one or two Victorian coins – were also turned up in the course of the day, so I don’t think the field was home to an early bureau de change.
The dime had a hole through it and might have been part of a necklace – and while the Arabian coin carried the date of 1334, that’s likely to have been the Muslim date which I think equates to around 1915 in the Western world.
But local folklore might help account for these coins.
Some years ago there was a real old “spit and sawdust” pub on the outskirts of one of the local villages which was run by a somewhat cantankerous old barman. But, despite this, the place served the best pint for miles around.
A tale goes that a local businessman had been entertaining a visiting American cousin and, after having dined at the 5-star Gleneagles Hotel, decided to go from the sublime to the ridiculous – and drop into what was widely known as Jack’s Shack to treat his cousin to a beer on the way home.
Having been wined and dined at the posh hotel, the American felt obliged to stand his hand at Jack’s only to realise: “Oh heck, I’ve only got dollars”.
Never to be outdone, the worthy old proprietor quickly quipped: “Don’t worry, I take dollars.” Then, whipping out a tin from under the bar, proceeded to work out the exchange rate – and gave him his change in a range of almost every currency known to mankind.
So it might just be that the pub landlord had been slipping some of these foreign coins to the local farm workers in their change as well.
And as they stumbled their way home, taking a shortcut through the fields, they might have found them in their pockets and, no doubt cursing, thrown them away.
Far-fetched? Possibly – but so were the coins!