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Metal Detector Finds One of England’s First Gold Coins

An amateur metal detectorist has found what is believed to be one of England’s first gold coins and could receive a payment of nearly US$500,000 for it.

The “Gold Coin of Henry III”, which was unearthed in an agricultural area in the southwestern city of Devon, was minted around 1257 and depicts the then English king seated on an ornate throne, holding an orb and a scepter. This is one of eight known coins of this type, most of which are in museums.

The discoverer, who wishes to remain anonymous, did not realize the coin’s value until he posted a photo of it on Facebook. That’s when Gregory Edmund, numismatist for the Spink & Son auction company, saw her. “This was one of his first days of prospecting in many, many years, so he obviously couldn’t believe what he had discovered,” Edmund told CNN, referring to the detectorist.

“It was a chance discovery during perfectly legal in-scope prospecting, and it’s just the case that this particular discoverer didn’t appreciate the importance of the discovery until he sought expert opinion.”

Under the UK Treasury Act 1996, the hobbyist who found the coin as a hobby can keep and sell it as it is not considered part of a wider discovery.

The rare coin could have a windfall profit of up to £400,000 ($546,000), according to a pre-sale estimate by British auction house Spink & Son in London, where will be auctioned on Sunday.

The person who discovered the relic said that the coin could easily have never been found, and that its value is second only to the information it gives about England’s first gold coinage.

“How she survived three-quarters of a millennium relatively unscathed is truly miraculous,” he said in a statement. “Like every amateur who keeps dreaming, my wish that day came true, and I happened to be very lucky.”

a rare find

King Henry III ruled England from 1216 until his death in 1272 – one of the longest reigns in the country’s history.

In 1257, he used the treasure he had personally amassed to mint his gold coins, according to David Carpenter, professor of medieval history at King’s College London, who wrote the preface to Spink & Son’s auction catalogue. King Henry’s coinage was the first to be cast in gold since the Norman Conquest, with the economy depending on silver coins ever since.

Edmund said the new gold minting could have been made from Byzantine coins and Islamic gold dinars, revealing trade routes between Europe and the Middle East at the time.

“If you drew a line across the planet at that point, you would see that continental Europe and England would be very much in the silver zone, and all their coins were silver. And in the east, in the Middle East, the then spice-rich Middle East, they would be golden,” Edmund said.

“Right now you see a huge intersection. So you start getting gold coins in the West and silver coins in the East at this time. And basically it shows very clearly that the two sides are talking to each other and they are involved with each other.”

Edmund added that the discovery of the coin and what it offers to existing knowledge of King Henry’s coinage was extremely significant: “It is very, very rare for a chance discovery to add so much to a pre-existing known corpus or database of coins.”

This content was originally created in English.

original version

Reference: CNN Brasil

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