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“Flashback & rewind to 1775. Birmingham. Where metal workers met in coffee houses, to discuss the need for better housing. All agreed to throw guineas, shillings & crowns into the common pool, then used it to build each persons house & didn’t stop until they’d built them all....”
You may remember a Nationwide TV advert from a year or two ago, starring Birmingham poet @MorrisonBurke, recounting the birth of the modern building society. The ad made a particular impression on me because Stephen specifically spoke about the Georgian era & the currency used...
...I’m fascinated with this period in time, but as yet, I’ve not found any crowns or shillings from the late 18th century. However, on one cold Wednesday afternoon back in November 2017, I found a coin that almost brought me to tears. That’s no exaggeration. Tears of absolute joy
...My father in law has a cousin who owns a small amount of land where she keeps horses. I won’t say exactly where, but it’s in Staffordshire. My FIL had never detected before but wanted to give it a go. So he approached his cousin about the possibility of detecting the land..
..she agreed & so my FIL asked me if I wouldn’t mind spending the day with him detecting the small paddocks, showing him the ropes. Now, I’m not sure how well this comes across on my Twitter account, but if you didn’t already know, I have a bit of a passion for metal detecting 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😉" title="Winking face" aria-label="Emoji: Winking face">
..I tried to play it cool, but I’m pretty sure that when he asked me if I wanted to go with him, I may have spontaneously broken into a dance https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy" aria-label="Emoji: Face with tears of joy"> Anyway, the day arrived & off we went. I loaned my FIL my spare detector & showed him what to do...
..the finds were sparse to begin with. My FIL found a modern pound coin & I unearthed a florin dated 1954. Unfortunately, post 1947, all ‘silver’ coins were made from cupronickel & they all tend to go this orangey colour whilst in the ground..
..after lunch, we moved to a small patch of land just off to the side of the paddocks & immediately, I began to find coins. Unfortunately, the soil had not been kind to them & all apart from one, we’re unidentifiable. The one I could identify was a King George II halfpenny..
..although unidentifiable, I was almost certain that they were all of a similar sort of age. All from the mid to late 1700’s. Because the soil had been so harsh on the copper coins, I was really, really hoping that there was a Georgian silver coin somewhere waiting to be found..
...what happened next will be a moment in my life that I will never, ever forget. The signal from my target sounded to me like a coin, but there was something slightly different about it. The tone was ‘softer’. I dug my hole & the target was in the plug of earth that I’d removed
..I broke the plug open with my hands & I was greeted with a sight that made my eyes widen & I’m pretty sure that my jaw hit the turf. My heart most definitely skipped a beat. I clutched the coin, stood rigid & marched about 30 feet in one direction. I’ve no idea why https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy" aria-label="Emoji: Face with tears of joy">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy" aria-label="Emoji: Face with tears of joy">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy" aria-label="Emoji: Face with tears of joy">...
..eventually I stopped walking, looked down at the fist I’d made around the coin & opened it. It was still there. It wasn’t my imagination. There was absolutely no mistaking what it was. No hint of it being counterfeit. It was heavy & it was glistening in the bright autumn sun...
..I knew straight away that it was a gold guinea. I’d been through my coin book at home enough times to recognise immediately what it was. It literally was a dream come true...
..I think it was at that point that I started to emit some strange sounds & if I remember rightly, I fell to my knees. My father in law raced over & congratulated me on what he knew was for me, the realisation of a dream. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t seek gold...
...but to find a gold coin, a coin that I’d only seen pictures of in my book before then, was absolutely unbelievable. Not every detectorist will find a gold coin throughout their time detecting & here I was, holding one in my hands...
The coin is a guinea from the reign of King George III & it was minted in 1779. To give you some idea of its age, the American war of independence was fought between 1775 & 1783, and Napoleon Bonaparte would’ve been around 10 years old when it was struck...
The coin was called a guinea because the gold used to make it was imported from the guinea region of Africa. Here’s the coin as it is today. I imagine that it was a fair amount of money to lose back then. I think I worked it out to just shy of 3 weeks wage for a general labourer
I might never find another gold coin & if I never do, I won’t be disappointed. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have already discovered this one. And one things for absolutely certain, I will never forget the afternoon of Wednesday the 8th of November 2017
