It is true what you say about Edward silver pennies I have quite literally found one in almost every field i have been on (metal detecting) around my local village. To the point that i joke with friends that there is one in every field just waiting to be found. I think about it this way; People have been finding old coins since coins were first minted. A man digging a ditch in 600AD might find a Roman coin from 170AD and take it home as a curiosity. He keeps it a while but eventually it is forgotten and lost again. A Tudor man might come along hundreds of years later and find that same Roman coin while plowing his field The tudor man also takes the coin home to his dwelling. Pass another 500 years, the Tudor hamlet and dwellings are long gone and now open plow field, I might then come along and find that same Roman coin in that field. I assume that it has moved little and i'm the first person to see it or handle it in nearly 2000 years but if it could talk, it would tell me of all the previous owners it had seen throughout history. Call me sceptical but i believe a single coin find is very sketchy dating evidence, even a few coins together could be someones lost collection from a different era. Here's an interesting one for you. Some of the areas i detect on were a WW2 U.S. airfield living site. I have found Roman silver coins in this area and one would assume that perhaps there had been some Roman occupation leading to this coin loss. However, reading through original WW2 documents i discovered that U.S servicemen loved purchasing Roman coins in England to take back home with them. I even found an original document (not from this airfield) relating to a serviceman who had reported his wallet lost and part of the contents was a number of Roman coins he had purchased. It's quite possible there was never any Roman activity in the area and the coins were simply lost by American servicemen who purchased them in 1944-45. I have also heard of people finding Roman coins in America which have most likely been dropped by servicemen who purchased them in Europe during ww2. Nothing can be assumed from a coin or two!

Very interesting; thanks for explaining! Regards from Canada 🇨🇦

Another informative video. Many thanks, and I am looking forward to your next book.

Thank you very much for this clear explanation!

That’s so cool that you found it just sitting there. I thought you were gonna say you found it on a dig!

Many years ago, in pre-decimal times, I built up a coin collection of pennies and half pennies by buying bags of pennies from the bank. Georgian half pennies are the same size as Georgian pennies, the thickness varies. I still have them. The earliest coins date from George I and George II all the way through to QE II. That's a span of over 200 years, coins still in circulation in 1970. Amazing really. Were there coin collectors in Roman and Saxon times? Then not every hoard may be what it seems!

Hurrah! Really great discussion, thank you. In a Medieval Eastern Mediterranean context, you often see the countermarking of coins from much earlier (even centuries), also attesting to much later circulation. It’s interesting to think what dynamics were at play there - did people refuse to accept older coins without a countermark, or was it to ‘reissue’ coins after collecting them as taxes? It is also interesting in the Roman world to think about the political implications - did political changes affect whether it was safe to spent the coinage of a deposed emperor. I recall a hoard of ~40 Phokas solidi in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, with a single coin of Heraclius, suggesting that it was perhaps unsafe to use coins of controversial previous emperors. I think there are even some Roman / Byzantine law codes which have to mandate that people accept coins of previous emperors to aid circulation, so presumably it was a concern.

Thanks for a clear explanation of this subject.

I once visited the US in the earlyb1970s and someone apologised because he was short of notes and had to give me my change in dollars coins. My friends were chatting about silver dollars being quite rare then and were amazed when I showed them the 8 or so I had. I kept 1 but gave the rest around.

I found a Roman coin, in my town near where a Roman settlement was found to be. However, it was found on the surface near the kerbside sitting on some mud. So, the coin MAY have been transported from who knows where, when the area was landscaped. Makes you think.....................

Fascinating and informative as always, Guy : )

I learned latin at school so should know terminus ante quem / terminus post quem. But struggle with dates and time and go blank when I hear the terms as to which is before (ante) and which after (post).

I wonder about this as it relates to ancient coins found in North America. Usually, single coin finds. People construct entire new histories on these finds, but there are so many other possible explanations.

..i like this guy too....great episode1 :D

Weird things make it into circulation because the size is right. I've gotten change from Germany, Jamaica. Australia and Panama among others. Heck I have an Austrian 10 heller coin from 1895 because it's the same size as a dime. Are they worth anything? No. Do I care? No.