http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=143931&sc=79 A Scottish gold coin dated 1601 was unearthed at the Colony of Avalon in Newfoundland, which was founded in 1621 by George Calvert, who later become Lord Baltimore. W/Pics... Take Care Ben
Can you just imagine a Scotsman losing his gold coin? Poor fool went out an' drowned himself afterwards.
Are they known to worry about money? That would've sure been a tidy sum for anybody back then. I find it interesting how the coin is nearly cut in two.
There is an old jingle "Shave and a Haircut -- 2 Bits" or $.25 cents. Coins struck in precious metals were sometimes cut into eight pieces (bits) when the payment called for less than the value of the coin. The Spainish Piece of Eight" was just such an item.
That's correct Bone, but gold coins were very seldom if ever cut into pieces. I've never heard of it being done at all as a matter of fact. The reason we often see gold coinage of that period broken in two or nearly so is because the coins were often bent by merchants or people receiving the coins as payment and then straightened back out. You see, gold coinage of that period, while often large in diameter, were usually very, very thin. Usually no thicker than a few sheets of paper. And when they were offered for payment the merchant would bend the coin in order to test its authenticity. If the coin was truly gold it would bend and straighten easily. If it was base metal or gilded it would not. But repeated bending of such thin coins would result in a cracked of broken coin even if they were genuine. And that is why we often see gold coins of the period with creases, bends, cracks or even broken in two.
The thickness of the flan makes a lot of sense, given the ductility of gold and how coins were hammered at the time. It serves a lot of practical purposes, such as a larger design by the issuing authority, and I'd guess easier to handle than earlier button-sized gold coins.
A bigger picture would be interesting. The black crack almost makes it like a lamination peeled off from the surface, though I'm sure that's not the case. I wonder, what would be the value on such a piece?
These coins were made of almost pure gold so laminations were quite rare. So I assume that you are asking what the value would be for a cracked or broken coin. For this coin, probably about 75% of what an undamaged example would be. But that is largely because of the rarity of the coin.
