Colony of Avalon turns up whole gold coin from 17th century
Archeologists at a dig near the southern shore community of Ferryland have unearthed the first whole gold coin ever found in Newfoundland.
The Scottish coin, a Sword and Sceptre dated 1601, was found at the Colony of Avalon archeological dig on June 10. It went on display at the Colony's interpretation centre on Friday.
According to a news release, the coin was issued during the reign of King James VI of Scotland two years before he ascended the throne of England as King James I following the death of Queen Elizabeth I.
The coin is about the size of a loonie, weighs about five grams and is made of 22 karat gold. It had a value of six pounds (120 shillings), which represented a lot of money at the time.
"If you do it based on wages, that amount ... would be about four months wages for the person who did all the marketing for the King's household," archeologist Jim Tuck told CBC Radio.
The coin, discovered on the second day of this season's digging season, was found on top of a footing that Tuck thinks dates from the very early years of the Colony.
"We were exposing that footing and scraping off the top layer ... scraping the dirt and leaves and bottle caps and junk off the top where we had stopped last year and lo and behold, here was this gold coin which I thought first was the inside ... the liner for a bottle cap or something like that, but within a few seconds it was pretty obvious that it was real gold and that it was something we had never seen before," he said.
Even though the coin has a split in it, Tuck said it's in very good shape, and he wonders how it survived not only 400 years, but how it remained hardly worn between 1601 to 1621 — the time between when the coin was struck and the settlement was established.
"It must have been very carefully hoarded and never used, it didn't circulate much at all ... I don't think the average fishermen in Newfoundland , on the English shore, had that kind of money in his possession, so it must have been a merchant — or, I wouldn't at all be surprised — if it were Capt. Wynne, the first governor or one of the Calverts themselves," he said.
The obverse features the crowned arms of Scotland (rampant lion) surrounded by the Latin inscription, 'James VI, by the Grace of God, King of Scots'. The reverse features a crossed sword and sceptre, flanked by two thistles all below a crown. The reverse Latin legend reads, "The safety of the people is the supreme law."
Archeologists have been excavating the Colony, founded in 1621 by George Calvert (later Lord Baltimore), for more than a decade. Over the years, the site has turned up more than a million artifacts, from gold rings to a sea-flushed outhouse.