Metal Detector Find – hammered coin?

Dartmouth Farthing of about 1640

As metal detectorists you are always wondering what your next trips metal detector find will be. I am always amazed as to what comes out of the gound and what possibilities are waiting for us. Most of the time you can’t plan or really be certain as to what will appear in the next hole you dig and that is what makes metal detecting such a great hobby and why this coin was such a surprise when it came out od the ground.

This particualr metal detector find came to light after spending some time wandering a field with very little to show for my efforts apart from the usual bullets, victorian coins and musket balls.

The image below is one of my most interesting coin finds due to it’s relative scarcity, as they really do not come to light that much, or so I believe. It was a bit of a mystery but it’s (I believe) a hammerd coin, a Dartmouth Farthing of about 1640. It took me a fair amount of time to track down what it was and if anyone viewing this knows better than please let me know. Its about 14mm across and came out of the ground as you see here and has had a wash under the cold tap, but thats about it. It was found with my Minelab Explorer XS (review coming soon) at about three inches down on farmland.

The little research and advice I could find mentions that this coin, little simlar ones of it type with issued to the poorer sectins of the population, but why this particular coin was struck is still a bit of a mystery.

I plan to reasearch this particular item more and will update this page when I know more but as mentioned before, I am always amazed as to what comes out of the ground.

For a little more information on this coin take a look at this page at the Fitz Museum

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