by Björn Schöpe
translated by Annika Backe
March 5, 2015 – We all now: a snowball mustn’t contain any stones. That is dangerous! A historic coin in a snowball isn’t any less dangerous. Fortunately, 11 year-old Brandon in Cornwall, England, has instinctively taken account of this.
Recently, the school had some new posts installed in the grounds. When Brandon kneeled down near one of the newly-dug holes and formed a snowball, he saw something glistening and found a coin. Paul Rigby, a teacher, recognized it as a sixpence from 1562. The pupils immediately took the microscope and identified the specimen with zeal. Rigby considers the coin genuine. He thinks it might be worth anywhere between £300 and £900.
But Mr Rigby is wondering whether the school is sitting on a much richer treasure, as he told the Cornish Guardian: “It may be the case that someone simply lost the sixpence all those years ago, but there could be a horde of Elizabethan coins buried there. After all, we have very fine Tudor houses in the area, including Lanhydrock and Cothele, so who knows what we could find?”
At any rate, this has definitely awaken his pupils’ interest in numismatics.
You can read the report in the Cornish Guardian.