Find your coin
Today, it is probably difficult to find a person on the planet who would not ever collect anything. As a rule, the collection of objects similar in their characteristics or purpose, comes from childhood. Remember what you collected in childhood? Stamps, postcards, matchbox labels, beautiful pebbles, shells … It is possible that over the years your priorities have grown into collecting more remarkable things, like beer mugs, netsuke, toys, weapons, etc.
However, numismatics has been very popular lately – a hobby that requires a lot of free time, and especially money, because it turns out that money also costs money, and often not at all, with what kind of face value they are issued. Their value is determined by a complex evaluation system, the main ones of which are the rarity of a coin or bill, its physical condition, and also age. In a word, to understand numismatics well, you need to know history well and many other things.
However, not only knowledge captivates numismatists, but, oddly enough, a passion for adventure. If you think that nowadays the cranks who pack their backpacks, take tents, tourist sleeping bags, kettles and other camping equipment and set off in search of ancient coins or treasures, are gone, then you are deeply mistaken. Moreover, tourism is no less fascinating for these people in life, and therefore they know that the success of the whole enterprise depends on the correct equipment. For example, agree that sleeping in the warmth and comfort of a quality sleeping bag is much more pleasant than staying under the morning dew, curled up in a ball by an extinct fire.
That Maurice Jones, a British enthusiast, is no exception. Every year she goes in search of treasure in the small suburbs of ancient England. And this year was for her the year of discovery. She found in the field near Gloucester a medieval coin from the reign of William the Conqueror. True, for this we had to work hard. With the metal detector, Maureen explored more than one mile of British land. But, as Jones herself assures, this is just her joy. After all, almost her entire collection consists of coins found to her or exchanged for the like.
However, this find for Maureen has become special. Even experts have recognized that they see the coin of the time of William I for the first time. But no one doubted its authenticity. The coiner clearly shows the name of the chaser – Silakvayn and the place where the coin was made – Gloucester, it was here that the mint was located. The find is dated 1077-1080 year. So she is almost a thousand years old!
How much such a find can cost today is not reported, but they say it represents “great value”. However, for a true numismatist, the price is not the most important thing …
