It was a lovely morning as we met up for the detectingscotland.com club dig on Sunday, June 16th. Laughs were had, spirits were high - but the ground conditions were tough and ultimately keeping detected finds shallow. Oddly enough, it's been quite dry in Scotland of late (gasp!) and this did have an effect on the depth of the machines on the day.
A never say die attitude is what's required however, and after several hours of hunting two large fields, I get a nice steady 4" signal, reading 12-12 on the screen. This is a dig that usually will turn out to be a foil top or similar, but my luck was in that day!
Flipping over the plug reveals the small, unmistakable shape of cut half hammered coin. Virtually speechless, I called one of the guys on the dig over to have a look while I took various shots and video of the find. As I plucked the coin from the dirt, I thought I could see the triangular shield that would be associated with an Irish hammered coin. I was speculating however, and came to find out that this coin is not only older than I thought, but a scarce find at best.
I present to you a little beauty of a Cut Half Silver Longcross Brabant. Minted in Belgium under Jean I, ca. 1268-1294AD. Moneyer 'WALT' of which you can see the 'LT' in the quadrants of the coin's reverse. The equivalent of a British minted Silver Penny, this was most likely someone's change around 800 years ago!
Whole example of this coin -https://www.numisbids.com/sales/hosted/numisbe/may13/thumb03069.jpg
Diggin' Scotland's Past - Scotland, UK
