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Description: | Report for H M Coroner on potential find of Treasure2012 T757 Solway area, CumbriaI have examined 6 coins reported found in the Solway area, Cumbria. All are silver coins of 16th-century English rulers and are of the traditional sterling standard, over 90% fine metal. Five are groats (the fourpenny coin) of Henry VIII's Second Coinage and the remaining coin is a sixpence of Elizabeth I. Their details are as follows (coins marked with an asterisk are damaged or fragmentary):Henry VIII (1509-44)Second Coinage (1526-44)Groat rose 1526-9 London 2.46*Groat rose 1526-9 London 1.97*Groat lis (1) 1529-32 London 2.5Groat lis (2) 1529-32 London 2.7Groat lis (2) 1529-32 London 2.25*Elizabeth I (1558-1603)Sixpence castle (1570-2) 1572 2.62The five groats of Henry VIII are a single denomination, close in date and would have circulated together. They clearly represent a single deposit, with a value of 1 shilling and eight-pence, equivalent to something approaching a week's work for a labourer in the early to mid-Tudor period.Between Henry VIII's Second Coinage and Elizabeth I's reign, there occurred the monetarily incredibly disruptive Great Debasement, which drove good silver money out of English currency, before the restoration of standards and elimination of debased issues by Elizabeth early in her reign. Whilst some good silver re-emerged from savings after this, there are no known silver hoards of the Elizabethan period with contents that resemble this find. The probability is that there are two groups of material represented by this find: a hoard deposited in the 1530s and a single coin lost in the mid to late Elizabethan period, over forty years later.It is my opinion, therefore, that coins 1-5 in the group fulfil the criteria of Treasure, according to the terms of the Act, being of good silver and deposited together. The remaining coin is probably a single deposit, lost separately decades later, and thus not eligible for consideration as Treasure.Four musket balls were also recovered in the area of the find, Advice was sought from the conservator at the Wallace collection, David Edge, who confirmed that it would difficult to confirm the dates of the musket balls. As the musket balls cannot be securely dated to pre 1712 they fall outside the provisions of the Treasure Act 1996.Dr Barrie J. CookCurator of Medieval and Early Modern CoinageDepartment of Coins and MedalsBritish Museum20 February 20132012 T757 Solway area, Cumbria (addendum)I have examined a further coin reported found at the site of the 2012 T757 Solway area find. It is another example of a silver groat of Henry VIII's Second Coinage, initial mark lis (2.59g), of which there were 3 examples in the original group. It would seem extremely likely that this coin was originally part of the same deposit as those previously reported and it is my opinion, therefore, that it should also be considered Treasure.Dr Barrie J. CookCurator of Medieval and Early Modern CoinageDepartment of Coins and MedalsBritish Museum3 January 2014
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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