AT the February meeting of the Andover History and Archaeology Society held at the Andover Museum Dave Walton of the Wherwell History Group spoke on ‘The History of British Coinage through Metal-Detecting’.

Modestly saying that he was more metal detectorist than coin expert, he nevertheless illustrated his talk with the great variety of different coins he himself had found, from ‘ring money’ to the pre-decimal coins of the present Queen.

Key to improving the relationship between detectorists and archaeologists was the founding of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in 1997: www.finds.org.uk. PAS encourages the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public, primarily detectorists. Objects are identified by experts, given a catalogue number and brief report. Since 1998 the database has recorded 1,248,434 objects, with 200 added daily.

The earliest currency in England was Celtic ring money of gold or copper. The first coins, based on gold staters of Philip of Macedon, were made by casting. Hammered coins were produced from c.55BC by placing a blank piece of metal between two dies, and then striking the upper die with a hammer to produce an image on both sides.

At the Roman invasion of 55AD a lot of coinage was brought into this country.With over 400 years’ use they are common.The denarius was silver and lower denominations of four different metals. The 1988 edition of Sear’s catalogue listed 4,408 different Roman coins but many more have since been added through metal detectorists’ finds.

Anglo-Saxon coinage, used from around 600AD, is very rarely found: shillings and pence date from this period. Viking period coins are even rarer.

In medieval times, the silver penny was minted from one penny’s worth of silver for a 1d coin. Reverses had a cross, to discourage clipping the edges, which debased the coins. A shortage of small change led to cutting down the middle to make a halfpenny or in four to make farthings.

On Elizabeth I’s coins the cross quartered a shield, and dates were introduced. There were eight silver denominations including 1½d and ¾d but, with clipping, it was difficult to distinguish the different coins, so an English Rose was added as a marker on alternate coins in the series.

In 1663, milled (i.e. machine made) coinage was minted for the first time, with mass-production from 1797 at Matthew Boulton’s steam presses in Birmingham. However, a penny’s worth of copper made his ‘cartwheel pennies’ too heavy for ordinary use.

In addition to coins, detectorists also find lead tokens made by the village blacksmith for local use,

trade tokens and ‘jettons’ (counters in reckoning accounts, later used in card-playing); coffee token coins, love tokens — 16-18th century pennies bent into an ‘s’ shape and coin weights for foreign currency conversion.

Dave concluded his presentation with a beautifully illustrated poem he had composed, ‘The Valley’, which told the history of coinage in England through the variety of local finds in his native valley.

He was very warmly thanked for a most comprehensive and informative talk.