Holy Copper Coin!!! Here's one you don't expect!

Lost Signal · Apr 2, 2019

awdw called me for an after-work hunt at a colonial permission site. I caught all of the green lights coming home, and we were on site by 5:30. Didn't dig many signals, but one of them was a coin that I never expected to find (actually a coin that I'd never heard of)... a Clement IX 1/2 baiocco, 1667-1669. Would love to know the story behind this one.

awdw · Apr 3, 2019

Very nice.

Professor of Engineering · Apr 3, 2019

Congrats on the old copper! :occasion14:

Scrappy · Apr 3, 2019

Very nice. Congrats

Rubka888 · Apr 3, 2019

That is so cool! Great patina!

Lost Signal · Apr 3, 2019

mbcuce said:
You could have waited on your brother, that’s all I’m saying...

I'll admit, I did feel a twinge of guilt, but I saved you from having to watch me dig up a 17th century coin from the Papal States. It kind of lessens the blow.

A2coins · Apr 3, 2019

That's just freaking cool

oxbowbarefoot · Apr 3, 2019

very cool!

Patriot Relics · Apr 4, 2019

Lost Signal said:
awdw called me for an after-work hunt at a colonial permission site. I caught all of the green lights coming home, and we were on site by 5:30. Didn't dig many signals, but one of them was a coin that I never expected to find (actually a coin that I'd never heard of)... a Clement IX 1/2 baiocco, 1667-1669. Would love to know the story behind this one.
View attachment 1698560
View attachment 1698561

Man it is tough to break into the 1600s on a copper - congrats on the early coin. Barely made it myself this year with a WM

Steve in PA · Apr 4, 2019

Lost Signal said:
Thanks everyone!

I think it's already a pretty rare coin, but it's especially strange to find one at a colonial South Carolina site. The colony banned Catholics from settling for fear that they might conspire with the Spanish. There were a few indentured servants and Acadian refugees, but no established church until the late 18th century.

I suppose the coin could have been seen as just a piece of copper in general circulation, but you would think, that in that climate, a papal coin would have viewed with suspicion.

Very interesting coin, first one I have seen posted. I think, like you say, it was just another copper in circulation, probably picked up somewhere along the trade routes. Once in South Carolina, it's very unlikely anyone, even wealthy plantation owners, would know what it is. So it just circulated like any other foreign copper. It wasn't like you could search the internet to identify it back then :laughing7:

mbcuce · Apr 4, 2019

I know money was money and even rich people back then in South Carolina were not going to turn down a copper but it is just so unlikely that they would have anything connected to Catholicism. Catholics were not allowed, the people here came to escape persecution from them. Just seems very strange that that would end up at a colonial site in South Carolina. Wish we could learn that story.

Lost Signal · Apr 4, 2019

Steve in PA said:
Very interesting coin, first one I have seen posted. I think, like you say, it was just another copper in circulation, probably picked up somewhere along the trade routes. Once in South Carolina, it's very unlikely anyone, even wealthy plantation owners, would know what it is. So it just circulated like any other foreign copper. It wasn't like you could search the internet to identify it back then

Steve, I'm not surprised that no one has posted one here. It seems to be exceedingly rare. I found a picture of one on an Italian coin collecting discussion board, and the person, who posted said that he could not find any that had been sold or auctioned. (I had to use Google Translate) A collector on the thread said, yes it is extremely rare but not at all valuable. Maybe 20euro. That's neither here nor there, for me. My mind is just blown that a Vatican coin that is very rare in Italy was found in South Carolina.