Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Treasure Blog: 16th Century Coin Hoard, Lindisfarne Isle

Found by a workman in a clay pot, which he threw in the back of his van and stuck in a corner of his garage. Eight years later, cleaning the pot, gold and silver coins cascaded out of it.

Pic:



One of the coins is a gold scudo stamped with the likeness of Pope Clement VII, famous for refusing to permit the divorce of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which resulted in England breaking away from the Catholic Church. The coin is the first of its kind discovered in the world, the news report says, so presumably it's quite valuable.

Update: inadvertently identified that old English king as Henry VII vice Henry VIII. Thanks to ProudHillbilly for pointing it out.

2 comments:

ProudHillbilly said...

Henry VIII.

And how come stuff like that never happens to ME?

Bob said...

@ProudHillbilly: Thanks for the correction! No treasure in the US, or not as much as in Europe. A metal detector at old farm locations might turn up the odd jar of coins, but nothing that isn't US origin, save in some old coastal cities. A couple of years ago they found a Colonial-era penny in New Bern, NC, which was a Colonial capital of NC for a while.