Silver Penny of Edward the Confessor

Easily the best hammered coin I've found in my entire career thus far, and one that would be hard to better. In such brilliant as-struck condition that under an eye glass you could see every tiny detail of the dies, and see easily that the obverse and reverse dies were of different ages, the obverse being fresh and the reverse well-used.

It was found near to a Medieval manor house, still standing to this day. Local rumor had it that there once stood a medieval ecclesiastical establishment nearby, known legendarily as 'the priory.'

Though this was never located for certain, what I discovered was a ploughed out level platform, a spread of high-grade Medieval material, and a number of large stones some hundreds of yards distant from the manor, certainly once a building, and possibly what the locals were talking about. It was an exciting place to search in any case, but the excitement was really fueled by those rumours.

When I found an actual and bona-fide piece of ecclesiastical metalwork, a heavily gilded and beautifully decorated reliquary mount, only short of its original massive cabochon of rock crystal, and just tens of yards outside the bounds of the Medieval site, I thought that the rumours were becoming something of a fact. But when this beautiful coin turned up too, but inside the bounds, I was certain I had established the site as the 'priory' of legend.

Of course we'll never know for sure, but what is ever certain in this pastime of ours, eh? One thing's for sure though... always follow up on the local gossip, because even the faintest smoke always leads to a fire!

The hard numismatic details of this coin can be found here at UKDFD, but in brief, they are ~

Edward the Confessor penny, pointed helmet type, mint - London, moneyer - Brungar. Epping Forest District, Essex.