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More metal detecting in my parent's back garden today, the kids hopeful of finding treasure chests in the vegetable patch and me not totally dismissive of the idea. We found four screws, a modern nail, an older looking nail and a small screwdriver.
The guys who do the gardening for my folks had had a more interesting find in the same patch. A small coin or token with a hole in the middle. It seemed too dirty to identify, but with the help of my iPhone I was able to identify it as a Norwegian coin and a google image search suggested it was a 5 kroner coin (or at least 5 units of some kind- cents or whatever). The side that would have the date on was much dirtier and it was hard to see anything, though Ernie had a go at cleaning it and there was possibly a 1999 date on it (or maybe 1666).
I haven't looked too deeply into it, but it seems that coins with this design were made post 1991, which would mean Ernie's sharp eyes might have called it.
Which begged the question of how a coin from Norway (where none of the Cheddar Herring family had been) had found its way into our potato patch. Long enough ago to get into this awful condition, but presumably post 1991.
Even if someone had ended up with the coin in their change by accident (quite difficult as the hole in the middle makes it unlike any UK coin), why would they have gone way into the back of the garden to get rid of it. My family has lived in this house for 50 years now. It can't be from a previous owner. Did a fleeing Norwegian bury their fortune here one night, maybe fearful of the Millennium Bug? If so we will find that treasure chest.
It's an archaeological mystery, but fun to have something (even if we hadn't found it ourselves) with a bit of mystery behind it. I'd love to have found a coin of any kind with the kids, but we still managed to have a fun time working out what the heck was going on.
And as with all good mysteries we didn't have a Scooby-Dum, let alone a Scooby-Doo.
