Cut hammered coins

robfinds · Sep 17, 2016

This mornings hunt produced, two nice short cross cut hammered silver coins. One a cut half, the other a tiny cut quarter. The coins date to the late 12th / early 13th century. They were the small change of the day. Wonder how they were lost, or if there loss even registered to the owner. Still nice to find. Robert.

Patriot Relics · Sep 17, 2016

Dug my first cut silver this month as well, but hard to beat the look of those hammered coins. Outstanding recoveries

A2coins · Sep 17, 2016

Love those old coins are cut coins is that how they paid for stuff by cutting a piece off

stupid question I'm sure, I'm not sure what hammered coins are I guess I just don't think Ill find anything that old around here Thanks for the post sweet finds!!!!

robfinds · Sep 18, 2016

A2coins said:
Love those old coins are cut coins is that how they paid for stuff by cutting a piece off stupid question I'm sure, I'm not sure what hammered coins are I guess I just don't think Ill find anything that old around here Thanks for the post sweet finds!!!!

Hello A2, no not stupid. That did sometimes happen. The story of these cut coins is this. In their time the penny was just about the lowest denomination coin. It was thought that no round half pennies or farthings ( one quarter of a penny, forthlings) were minted. It as though through metal detecting, been proved, that tiny amounts of both were indeed produced. Anyway back to the reason for cut coins. If all you had was pennies in your purse, and a loaf cost half a penny. Then you had a problem, if you didn't want two loaves. Cut halfs and quarters filled the gap, caused by the almost non existence of round half pennies and farthings. I have over the years found many coins that were purposely broken rather than cut. And even today we still use the term break, to describe changing large amounts of money, in to smaller amounts. Robert.